Three weeks ago, I stopped at the liquor store to buy a bottle of wine. It hadn’t been an unusually tough day at work, I just craved something cold and dry on the tongue that would send a little warmth to my solar plexus. I chose a bottle of Fat Bastard chardonnay, a wine I first tasted at one of our favorite restaurants, Restaurant 155.

Restaurant 155 was at 1st and Market and became our annual anniversary spot. The food was incredible, the ambiance soothing and Fat Bastard was highly recommended by our waiter. While it is not my favorite chardonnay, its lightly floral and slightly toasty flavor make for a great wine to sip while reading on the deck, snacking on cheese and crackers. And, with each tip of the glass it brings back memories of those anniversary dates, peering through the steamed windows down to Market Street with the falling snow illumined by the street lights. Or the night a jazz trio from New Orleans sent a buzz and toes tapping throughout the entire restaurant.

Ah, forget hump day. Wine Wednesday has been born.

The next Wednesday was warm, with the edge of summer peaking in the afternoon but a hint of cool had returned on the evening breeze as I pulled into the drive with a bottle of Oyster Bay Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc in the passenger seat.

We waited until dusk to twist the top. Having never tried an Oyster Bay wine, I enjoyed its crispness with a slight peppery finish. That is the word we both decided upon, peppery. No other way to describe this summer-like wine. And, just as we finished our first stemless glass, the neighborhood bat swooped through the trees.

We had not seen our web-winged neighbor for a while, as a matter of fact, we decided it’d been a few years. Two years ago, we would sit on the lower patio and watch two bats, one larger brownish bat and a smaller, spindly bat, dive beneath our backyard trees to snap up the insects along the grass line. We named them Count and Vlad. No, not much effort in their naming, but it made us laugh. So, we were pleased to see a new furry friend crookedly making his way through the maple tree and over the wheat field. And so we named the critter, what else? Wednesday.

It has been three weeks since our first initial Wine Wednesday and the decision was made to bring home a bottle we might pass over, not give a second glance. Let’s be daring, choose a wine not recommended by a friend or The Wine Spectator. Challenge the notion that the more expensive the wine, the better. The temperature reached one hundred degrees, today. I went straight to the cooler and grabbed a wine I hoped would surprise us with its chilled sweetness. And if it failed, it was only $6.

Good thing it was only $6. It reminded me of a flat communion wine. After the first sip I almost expected to find a soggy host stuck to the roof of my mouth. I’m not a fan of sweet, sweet wines and this definitely was more sugar than Sangria. But, it was cold, and it went well with our Picasso pizza slices and kept my mouth wet enough to yell for the Chicago Blackhawks. As for Wednesday, our batty friend, it was too hot and muggy to sit on the deck and await a visit. Maybe next Wednesday. After all, there are 28 Wednesdays still waiting in 2013.