Tasting for the Cure

We've been driving under "Beer-Wine-Food - Sept. 5-6" banners for a couple weeks now, strung across the streets leading in to the village of Glendale from all directions (we live just to the north of Glendale). I finally remembered to go the website mentioned on the banner to find out what good thing was happening so close to where we live.

It was a beer and wine tasting event on Friday and Saturday evening, with over 100 varieties promised. The "food" part of the promotion focused on Cincinnati's "Porkopolis" history, this year calling for all things bacon. Fine for the beer part of the tasting, I thought, but not so much for the wine.

The online brochure also noted a rather hefty entrance fee: $30 for a tasting admission (wristband, 5 tasting tickets, and a commemorative glass) and $10 for a non-tasting admission (no wristband, no tickets, and no glass--just the privilege of walking around and watching the people, I guess). Nevertheless, we were driving, so we purchased one tasting admission and one non-tasting; five tastes was sufficient to share between two people, and we are good enough friends that we can also share the glass.

Our first taste was a too-sweet sangria, and from then on we looked only for the driest red wine at each stand. We found a few and had some pleasant chats with the volunteer pourers at the booths. They couldn't tell us much about the wines, though, as they really were volunteers for the charity portion of this event, which benefits a foundation called The Cure Starts Now, devoted to pediatric brain cancer research.  We did learn the names and locations of a couple of interesting local wineries, and we also learned that The Cure Starts Now funds an annual two-week research symposium in Cincinnati that draws the top researchers from around the world. Not bad for a "homegrown" charity only in its seventh year.

In between sips and chats we meandered around the attractive village square, which is off the beaten path (main street) by which we usually drive through Glendale, and I made note of the lovely gift shop, a small bakery, and a couple eating establishments that seemed a few cuts above most of the baconed snacks being served on the street that night. Glendale has only a few over 2,000 inhabitants and was incorporated in 1855 as Ohio's first and one of the nation's first planned communities. An early suburban area, it lies next to a direct railroad line into the city of Cincinnati, and during the brief hour and a half that we were there, freight trains rumbled within view at least six times. Indeed, the frequent nocturnal train whistles from this track have lulled me to sleep when I stayed with my sister in Wyoming and now in Springdale.