Vins fins chez les Kirk

My friends Tammy and Steve Kirks had a wine-tasting party last night. It is a fun concept: Guests bring bottles of red or white, which are then blind-tasted. The wines are left in brown paper bags, which Steve labels in black magic marker A to Z, and guests rate wines on a one to five scale, 5 being "amazing," 1 being "I want to spit this out."

The Kirks, who live in a charming bungalow-like house near the Rountree neighborhood, have been throwing their wine-tasting party for five years. It is always a joy. The guest list this year was rather well-curated: Everyone was like-minded enough to get along, but there was a wide range of people there. The metalsmith from the East Coast; the artist from Kansas, a nonprofit development pro from St. Louis, the architecture prof, the lawyer, the web/computer guru, etc. etc. etc.

Then there's the food. Tammy prepares an assortment of delicious hors d'oeuvres (most innovative: dried apricots spread with just a touch of blue cheese), and then some guests are invited to contribute vegetable trays or slices of freshly fried (!) turkey for miniature sandwiches. I hope they ask me to bring something next year; I could make une tarte à la crème or something.

I've been invited for two years, and I think the Kirks' wine-tasting is almost without compare as theme parties go: It's amusing; it's just structured enough that the theme is intruiging (which wines do people REALLY like?; will MY wine win?); but the party game isn't so structured that guests grow impatient with the "game play." Which consists of crowding merrily into the Kirks' smallish kitchen-and-breakfast-nook with 15 of their best pals to sip a series of one-ounce pours while spouting opinions. (My favorite from last night: "This smells like burnt firecrackers.")

Perhaps the most interesting thing is what Tammy and Steve's tasting says about middle-American tastes in wine. Last year, I thought I had scored a major coup by purchasing a French red for $12 or $15 from the Brown Derby International Wine Center's discount bins. I had never had tasted it before, but it would have been $25 or $30 at full price. I expected it would do well in the tasting, based on the expectation that price delivers quality.

But universally, nobody liked my wine. I even gave it a 2 out of 5 in the blind tasting.

So when this year's invitation came, I made no attempts at pretention and went with the very serviceable Rosemount Shiraz, which cost $9 or $11 at the nearest supermarket. It came in third among the reds. The winners are frequently very inexpensive wines that wine snobs would call "really drinkable," i.e., not complex in the slightest when compared with a Mouton Rothschild or something. And those savvy wine-shoppers are rewarded: This year the Kirks gave out beautiful carafe/glasses sets to winners.

It was a fun time. I didn't leave until nearly one in the morning (after many glasses of water and several turkey sandwiches, to be sure!).