FLASHBACK: 1983 Boone's Farm Tickle Pink $1.79 ****

It is always a good thing to be reminded of your roots. In my case, it was via e-mail: "You don’t mention Boone's Farm Tickle Pink in your wine blog…it is after all where you got your start."

Travel with me to 1983. I was a mature looking 16 and did the weekly grocery shopping in Belfast, Maine. Holly had her license and a `76 Chevy Nova and I had the weekly grocery money - we made a GREAT team. I was never carded, and would always slip a couple of bottles of Tickle Pink in with the groceries. We tried other Boone's Farm offerings, but we loved our Tickle Pink.

It always made for a good Saturday night when there was nothing else to do. We were so young then, Holly, Timmy, Stephen and I. I'd cook (usually fried rice) and we would drink and play darts in the dining room. We had amazing times and destroyed the wood paneling in that room. (Apologies to Martha who inherited the house)

That is where my cheap wine habit started. I had forgotten or repressed the memories. In an act of divine justice, Holly & Tim are married with teenage girls. They are lucky that Trader Joe's hasn't come to Maine yet!

How would the 16 year old me review the wine? Like this:

Boone's Farm Tickle Pink is wicked awesome. It is sweet and when we put on some tunes and I start cooking, we just keep pouring and pouring. I got some really cool McDonald's wine glasses, they are a smoked brown color, and they look really good. Holly asked me to make some fried rice, so I grabbed Grampy's skillet, cooked some minute rice and started chopping. Fried Rice with duck sauce is awesome....

Yes folks, that is where this reviewer got her start. And even though Tickle Pink is long retired (Boone's Farm has a fan club FYI) and I haven't used Minute Rice since then - that is where the seeds were sown. Cooking for people I love, sharing a bottle of wine and loving life - it doesn't get any better than that. And those McDonald's wine glasses? I wish I had kept them.