I’m feeling sort of sad today, sort of out-of-sorts. For one thing, June Gloom is here and it is foggy where I live. Another, I had to have some dental work done and it hurts now that the shots have worn off. But the main reason I am sort of sad, actually more like grumpy and pissy, is that the stash of wine I brought home from my big work tasting in late April is now history.

This is the worst part of my job. Because of my job, I can’t drink Charles Shaw, I can’t drink jug wine, I can barely swallow anything that costs less than $10.00, unless, of course, I am at a party and there is nothing else to drink.

When I first got my job it was almost 20 years ago, I was just 21 and drinking Glen Ellen by the gallon. I was in college, I lived with three other students and our crazy, freeloading boyfriends, and we lived on something like 50 cents a day. In those days, I had absolutely no problem drinking that swill. It was easy with eight people in a three bedroom flat.

Damn the palate. It keeps progressing even if your brain (or your income) stays in one place. If you drink good wine, even once in a while, it leaves an impression that is hard to forget, and then it is even harder to go back to swill. So, you drink a little better wine, like maybe Forest Glen or Mondavi Woodbridge. The palate, after a few more good-wine-teasers, says f*** you the next time you try to drink Forest Glen. And on and on it goes. Before you know it you are looking at the top shelf in the grocery store, where all the wines are over $20 and if you are lucky, some are on sale.

For the past month I have been drinking $35 Zinfandels and $50 Meritages on a nightly basis. My palate, now, is like THANK YOU, I LOVE YOU, YOU ARE MY HERO. Just now though, I had to pull a $10.99 Chianti on my palate. Now, The Palate is saying GO TO THE STORE HONEY, AND BRING YOUR CHARGE CARD.

My palate embarrasses me sometimes, like when it makes me smuggle wine into a baseball game or a concert, because I can’t drink what they’ve got there. Sometimes people snicker behind my palate’s back, when I bring moderately priced Gewurztraminers to the beach, instead of Miller Lite. But I stand behind my palate, and ignore the stares and giggles, because I know that we have together forged ahead and somehow, built something.

It’s too bad that what we have built is so expensive. Also, that if I was, say, suddenly unemployed, everything would tumble down around us and I would be drinking stuff I find on sale at the canned foods store. The Palate would not be happy with this situation.

Onward, back into the land of the $10.99 bottle with occasional attack on the cellar. It’s only eleven months until I am in Nirvana again.

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