As I look back at my first “virtual wine tasting” I am smiling and thankful and with some insights.  I am thankful that Snooth found my writings and thought enough to invite me to be part of the event.  I am also thankful for Murrieta’s Well to underwrite the entire event by sending wine to all the participants.  I am also thankful to a dear fellow wine blogger who is much more accomplished in her writings and for her knowledge and experience in the modern world of wine tasting events.  I also have to thank my Bride, who is always willing to try new wines and put up with me, and I am pretty sure the Church would never approve of “Sainte Bride.”

As for the smiles, it was a unique experience.  I just thought of all the accoutrements that I normally encounter at a wine tasting and I went with that.  I went into the china cabinet and found two white, a rosé and two red wine glasses, plus some more for my Bride who joined me in the tasting event.  Cheese and crackers to munch on and to cleanse the palate between wines was easy, but I am smiling because I asked my Bride to pick up some dark chocolate, just in case it was suggested that a certain wine would be wonderful with it, and she returned with such an esoteric and exotic 92% Cacao that I am sure nothing would pair with, though I did find that if I had that chocolate with some milk chocolate at the same time, I could survive.  I am also smiling because two days before the virtual tasting, I developed an abscess on a tooth that had cracked vertically and I will go through the elongate process of having an implant procedure, and my Bride was taking photos, so that I would not look like Marlon Brando as Don Corleone, because my right cheek and jaw was all swollen.

I came away realizing that many of the wine bloggers know each other, as the opening salvo was all “hellos” and friendly remarks and some inside jokes.  I also realize that I have to become glibber, if an offer ever comes my way again.  I was also surprised that one participant and there could have been others actually opened at least one of the bottles a day or two earlier to have with a dinner.  I also think that I made my responses a bit stiff and not nearly in the usual way that I write and that will change.  I opened the wines an hour before the event to have an initial taste before it started, so that I could make some notes and I think that I should have maybe given myself two hours of preparation, but it was fun and a learning experience.   In case you are wondering, by the time you read this, I may be asleep from medication, because the oral surgeon removed the crack tooth and began the implant procedure today.  I hope by tomorrow, the pain that I have been living with for almost two months will abate and I will try to get back to a “normal” schedule.