Free wine tastings and a day on the bus make for a great cheap date

Did you miss the grape harvest in Tuscany this fall? No plans to make it to the Walla Walla winter barrel tastings?

No worries. It's easy to sip and sample your way around the globe right here at home courtesy of local wine shops that offer free weekly tastings.

'Tis the season to stock up for the holidays, but know the risks: Sample too much of the good stuff, and wandering the wine aisles at Trader Joe's may not seem like much fun anymore.

Your wallet may call out for Two Buck Chuck, but your palate will lobby for something more sophisticated — a white Bordeaux, perhaps, named for the wild pigeons who eat the grapes in the vineyards of France.

This you will know because the shop owner — in this case, Emile Ninaud of Champion Wine Cellars — will have told you a story about pigeon-hunting parties and barbecues at the Château des Tourtes (House of Pigeons) winery in the Côtes de Blaye.

A warning: Dropping in on more than one tasting will likely require a designated driver. Most shops pour one-ounce sips of three or four wines.

The solution: Leave the car at home. Using the Metro bus as our limo ($4 for an all-day pass), my husband, Tom, and I custom-designed our own tasting tour on a recent rainy Saturday.

Since all but one shop on our itinerary didn't charge for tasting, it made for a rollicking fun day tailor-made for this holiday season of tightened belts.

Starting at our house in Magnolia, we mapped out a route that took us to six shops, starting with the earliest tasting we could find — 11 a.m. at McCarthy & Schiering in Queen Anne — and ending with the latest — 6 p.m. at All Things Wine in Renton.

We sipped (and sometimes spat), socialized and discovered neighborhoods worth a return trip. Next time, by car, of course, to stock up on some new wines.

Here's a timeline of our tour:

10 a.m. — Early start

in Queen Anne

McCarthy & Schiering, 2401 Queen Anne Ave. N. (also 6500 Ravenna Ave. N.E.). Saturday free tastings: 11 a.m.-5 p.m. 206-282-8500 or www.mccarthyandschiering.com.

Umbrella. Check. Backpack. Check. We bought day passes aboard Metro's Route 24 bus in Magnolia, then transferred to the 13 to reach this tiny shop next door to A&J Meats in Upper Queen Anne.

Sipping: Tastings start at 11 a.m. By 11:15 a.m., a small crowd had gathered around owner Dan McCarthy, who was pouring from behind a counter fashioned from wooden wine boxes.

McCarthy offered two reds — a 2007 Telegramme Châteauneuf du Pape, a spicy, bright French Rhone that sells for $35 a bottle, and the shop's own 2004 McCarthy & Schiering Columbia Valley wine priced at $22.95.

Bins brim with bottles priced from $10 to $13, but tastings usually include at least one wine in the $25-$50 range.

"It becomes like a social event," says McCarthy, who sometimes has to set a 15-minute limit on parking. Local winemakers often show up in the afternoons in Queen Anne and in the mornings at Ravenna.

Exploring: Why sip on an empty stomach? The smoked-salmon scramble at the Queen Anne Cafe, 2121 Queen Anne Ave. N., is big enough for two to split. Nearby, Caffe Ladro beckons with apple spice scones, and Eat Local offers $1 lattes to lure customers inside its organic takeout food store.

Noon —

Novices welcome

Champion Wine Cellars, 108 Denny Way. Saturday free tastings: Noon-5 p.m. 206-284-8306 or www.championwinecellars.com.

A 10-minute ride on the Route 13 bus in the opposite direction took us to Champion Wine Cellars. This is Seattle's oldest wine shop, opened in 1969 when it became legal for retailers other than Washington state liquor stores to sell wine.

Sipping: Spending a few minutes with soft-spoken proprietor Ninaud, a Frenchman and the former owner of Le Tastevin restaurant, is like visiting with a well-traveled uncle.

Choosing from the 1,500 labels on his shelves, he uncorks three or four wines on Saturdays, accompanying each pour with a little story while pointing out wine regions on a wall map.

Locked in a vault is his most expensive bottle — a $5,600 1961 Bordeaux, but Ninaud has a way of making novices and budget shoppers feel at home. There's an "Under $10 table" stocked mostly with inexpensive reds. For sale next to the register are jars of Italian herbed salt and chocolate bars from Ecuador.

Exploring: Champion Party Supply (no connection) is two doors down at 124 Denny Way. This longtime Seattle business is the go-to place for Christmas decorations, helium balloons and "value packs" of plastic glasses with mustaches.

1 p.m. —

Spanning the globe

Esquin Wine Merchants, 2700 Fourth Ave. S. Saturday free tastings: 1-4 p.m. Also Thursdays, 5-6:30 p.m. 206-682-7374 or www.esquin.com.

The Route 33 bus took 15 minutes to get to the Sodo Busway, one block east of Seattle's largest wine shop.

Sipping: Individual attention is nice, but sometimes you just want to blend in with the crowd. That's possible at Esquin. Couples with glasses in hand push baby strollers and grocery carts through roomy aisles signed "Italian Reds" or "Dessert & Port."

Tastings focus on themes such as a recent pairing of bacon and Australian wine, or "Cheap Date Night." We dropped in on "Spanning the Globe," with dueling tables set up featuring wines from Milbrandt Vineyards in Washington's Columbia Valley and Bodegas Beronia, a maker of Spanish Riojas.

Exploring: Esquin is four blocks south of the sports stadiums in Sodo, a gentrifying industrial area that's become home to new galleries, household decor and outdoors shops.

2 p.m. —

To market, to market

DeLaurenti's Specialty Food & Wine, 1435 First Ave. (Pike Place Market). Saturday free tastings: 2-4 p.m. 206-622-0141 or www.delaurenti.com.

The Tasting Room, 1924 Post Alley. Tastings: Sunday-Thursday noon-8 p.m.; Friday-Saturday noon-10 p.m. 206-770-9463 or www.winesofwashington.com.

A quick connection on Route 124 from Sodo left us time for lunch at The Tasting Room's candlelit cellar in the Pike Place Market before moving on to the 2-4 p.m. tasting at DeLaurenti's.

Sipping: The Tasting Room is a cooperative owned by seven Washington wineries. Sixty wines are available by the ounce, half-glass, glass, carafe or bottle. One-ounce sips start at $2. We paid $7 for a flight of four Washington whites paired with grilled sandwiches ($8) made with Beecher's cheese.

At DeLaurenti's, free samples of three wines from Italy's Umbria region ($11-$22) were on offer along with a trio of Italian cheeses. A few weeks ago the store featured five Hungarian wines paired with traditional appetizers. Coming up on Dec. 26 will be a Champagne tasting.

Exploring: DeLaurenti's is Seattle's premier Italian store. Stand anywhere, take a deep breath and sniff your way from Naples to Venice.

4 p.m. —

Beyond Seattle

All Things Wine, 4605 N.E. Fourth St., Renton. Saturday free tastings: noon to 6 p.m. Wednesdays and Fridays: 5-7:30 p.m. 425-254-8400 or www.allthingswineonline.com.

Six hours, five bus rides and 16 samples of wine since leaving home, we were tempted to call it a day. But the wine world extends beyond Seattle, and many suburban shops do tastings.

We caught the Route 101 bus in the University Tunnel Station, transferred to the 105 in downtown Renton, walked three-tenths of a mile and found All Things Wine, a family-owned shop opened two years ago by Leesa and Wayne Kofmehl.

Sipping: Greg Matiko, the winemaker at Skylite Cellars in Walla Walla, was pouring when we ducked in around 5 p.m. A wedge of cream cheese topped with pepper jelly sat on the counter next to a 2005 bottle of Big Red Hiney, a $14.99 red that won a gold award in the Tri-Cities Wine Festival this year. This shop also stocks 70 labels of beer and hosts free beer tastings on Fridays.

Exploring: A missed bus connection gave us an extra half-hour to relax by the fireplace at the Met Coffee & Wine Bar at 232-C Burnett Ave. S., across from the Renton Transit Center. The shop does tastings Thursdays from 5-7 p.m., focusing mostly on Washington wines. I'll be back to sample the goat cheese with honey and walnuts.

Carol Pucci: cpucci@seattletimes.com