In February of 1993, Christine and I had three couples over for dinner. Richard Romanowski brought a California cabernet that cost $32, which in 1993 was a great deal of money to spend on one bottle and is still a great deal of money to spend on one bottle. He told us about it at some length. Eddie Gates, who was the youngest one at the table and a little embarrassed, brought a Chilean cabernet from the grocery store that cost $5.99.

Christine took both bottles into the kitchen, poured them into two water pitchers, wrote A and B on masking tape, and carried them out without a word. Of the seven of us who didn't know which was which, six liked B better. B was Eddie's. Richard, to his everlasting credit, was one of the six, and he laughed harder than anybody.

Somebody said we ought to do that every month. So we did it again in March, on purpose, with paper bags instead of pitchers, and our first official tasting was Thursday, March 11, 1993. We were four couples then. We grew a couple at a time, mostly by people hearing about it at other people's dinner parties, and we've been at twelve couples since the fall of 1995.

Twelve is the limit. Twelve couples fit in a living room, and a bottle of wine goes almost exactly twenty-four ways (more on that below). There are two couples on the waiting list, and they are very patient people.

The theme. The host couple picks a theme a couple of months ahead: a grape, a country, a season, a price. ("Cabernet under $10" was a good one. "Wines from countries we can't find on a map" was not.) I send the theme and the date out on a postcard, and by e-mail to the seven couples who have it.

The bottles. Six couples bring a bottle that fits the theme. The other six bring something to eat afterward, and next month we switch. The bottle goes into a paper bag at home, with the store receipt folded up inside it, before you leave the house, so nobody sees a label in the driveway.

The paper bags. When everyone has arrived, the hosts take the bottles into the kitchen, pull off the foil (you would be amazed what people can tell from the foil), and put each one in a plain brown lunch sack. Then one of them shuffles the sacks behind a closed door and numbers them 1 through 6 with a marker, so even the hosts don't know which is which.

The pour. A bottle holds about 25 ounces. When all twenty-four of us are there, everybody gets about an ounce from each bag, and the hosts get whatever is left, which is never much. Bread, plain crackers and water on the table. No talking during the first pour. This is the hardest rule we have.

The scores. Everyone gets an index card and scores each bag from 1 to 10, whole numbers only. Ten means "I would buy this again tomorrow." One means "I wouldn't cook with this." When the cards are in, we talk, and it gets loud.

The reveal. I add up the cards on my calculator, and we unbag the wines in order, from the lowest score to the highest. The receipt comes out with the bottle, and the host reads the price out loud. This is the best part of the evening. It is especially the best part when the most expensive bottle comes out first.

The Golden Corkscrew. The couple who brought the winner takes home the Golden Corkscrew, which is a corkscrew Christine bought for $3.99 in 1993 and spray-painted gold in our garage. It sits on your mantel for a month and comes back to the next tasting.

Then we eat.

January 14 · Australian shiraz. It's in every store in Columbus this year, and now we know why. Five of the six were good enough to buy again. The winner was $9.49.

February 11 · Think Pink. Rosé and blush, for Valentine's Day. A dry rosé from the south of France won. The white zinfandel came in sixth, and that's all we'll say.

March 11 · Chilean merlot. Six years to the night after our first official tasting, so it had to be Chile. The winner cost $6.99, our cheapest winner ever, for about four months.

April 8 · Spanish reds. A Rioja won. Carmen Mixson taught us the word crianza, which on a Rioja label means the wine spent some time in oak barrels before it was sold.

May 13 · Sauvignon blanc. New Zealand beat California and France. It smelled like cut grass, which Dennis Bowen meant as a complaint and everyone else meant as a compliment.

June 10 · California chardonnay under $12. The oakiest, butteriest one won. Luella Catron says she has been drinking chardonnay for twenty years and is ready for something else.

July 8 · Porch whites under $8. On the Hoyts' front porch, 91 degrees at seven o'clock. A vinho verde from Portugal, light and a little fizzy, won at $5.99. New record.

August 12 · California zinfandel. A big Sonoma County zinfandel won with the highest score of the year. Christine picked it out. I carried it to the car.

September 9 · Italian reds. A Chianti won at $9.99. The bottle in the straw basket did not, and the joke about putting a candle in it was made by four separate people.

The winners, the prices and the scores for every tasting since September 1998 »

1. Nothing over $15. Sales tax doesn't count. Sale prices do. The receipt goes in the bag.
   
   
2. Bag it at home. No labels in the driveway, no hints at the door, no "oh, you'll like mine."
   
   
3. No talking during the first pour. Write down your score, then you can tell us about it.
   
   
4. Spit buckets are allowed, and nobody says a word. There's a clean plastic ice bucket on every table, and some of our best tasters use it all night. I'm told this is how the professionals do it.
   
   
5. Every couple picks a designated driver before the first pour. The driver tastes and spits. If anybody would rather have a ride home or a couch, the host has both, and nobody has ever had to ask twice. We're finished by ten o'clock. It's a weeknight, and some of us have patients at eight in the morning.
   
   
6. Plain English. You may call a wine anything you like, but if you call it "flabby," you have to explain what you mean. (Thomas Toland explained once. It took a while.)
   
   
7. Drink some water between bags. That one's from me, professionally. It's good for you, it's good for your teeth, and it makes bag 6 taste like bag 6 instead of bag 5.

All tastings start at 7:00 sharp. Bottle couples and food couples are on the postcard.

Every November somebody asks for a Beaujolais Nouveau night. Beaujolais Nouveau goes on sale on the third Thursday of November. We meet on the second Thursday. This is the one problem in our society that nobody has been able to solve.

Dues: none. The hosts buy the bread and the lunch sacks, and I buy the postcards. A box of index cards lasts about two years.

Wine friends on GeoCities:
The Weekend Winemaker, on making wine at home from a kit or from grapes. We have talked about trying it. We have not tried it.
The Cheese Course, learning about cheese one wedge at a time. Our food couples have been reading it.
Crush, an assistant winemaker writing through the 1999 harvest. The people who actually make the stuff.