Wine is a versatile substance: it can be the 12th ingredient in garbage can punch, or a means to impress your boss, your girlfriend, or your boss' girlfriend. To learn more about wine's loftier possibilities -- and get drunk for almost nothing on a Saturday afternoon -- you should take advantage of our very unofficial urban wine tasting tour:

• 4:30pm: 67 Wine and Spirits
  
  179 Columbus, at 68th
  
  Free tasting from 4-7pm. This Saturday features wines from Uruguay -- "the new Paraguay".
• 5pm: The New Ehrlich's Wine & Liquor
  222 Amsterdam Ave, at 70th
  Free Australian wine tasting from 5-8pm.

• 5:15pm: Celeste
  502 Amsterdam, between 84th and 85th
  Refuel at this laid back, authentic Italian restaurant offering the ultimate cheese plate (10 cheeses, $20). The synergy between wine and cheese should take your feigned refinement to a whole new level.
• 6:15pm: Vintage Wines
  2492 Broadway, at 93rd
  $5 to taste 5. $1 extra for wine over $20 a bottle, but a $2 refund for taking proprietor's freakish hairless son out for ice cream.
• 6:45pm: Columbus Ave Wine & Spirits
  730 Columbus, at 96th
  Free Italian White tasting from 4-7pm. Unsanctioned James Caan book signing in the scotch section to follow.
• 7:15pm: Martin Bros Wine & Spirits
  2781 Broadway, at 107th
  Free flowing California chardonnay and pinot noir from 5-8pm. Simultaneous rum tasting, if you're ready for the hard stuff.

To avoid being pressured into actually purchasing an expensive vintage, it's best to come armed with a few excuses. For instance: "I'm underage", or the obvious, "Uruguayans killed my family." Instead, since you're uptown anyway, go purchase a cut-rate box of wine, and use it to ply unrefined Columbia undergrads into sleeping with you.

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