Part of the beauty of wine exploration is the story behind each bottle.

There was no finer place to find an assortment of tales and tastes than at the Midwest Wine Expo presented by Binny’s April 1 at Drury Lane in Oak Brook.

During the expo, my date and I bought three bottles of wine, which were the perfect combination of supple flavor, excellent price and tall tale. All three would be terrific buys when you do your weekend wine shopping.

The 2006 St. Hallett Faith Poacher’s Blend from Barossa, Australia, ($10.99) is a perfect example of a story selling a wine. It is a nice, round, flavorful wine that resembled a Shiraz. The story, though, was dynamite, and, when comparing notes, stood out over every other wine.

St. Hallett establised a financial arrangement to harvest grapes for a cash-strapped neighboring winemaker just starting out. For three years, they were “hired” to do the neighborly chore. The only problem: St. Halett was never reimbursed for their services. As the story goes, during the fourth year, they entered the neighbor’s vineyard one night and clipped enough grapes to account for the services rendered.

The next morning, St. Hallet called its neighbor with good and bad news. The good: Your harvest is in, and you aren’t indebted anymore. The bad: We are keeping your grapes as payment. Hence the name, Poacher’s Blend, on the label.

The other two purchases included a 2004 Rodney Strong Chalk Hill Chardonnay ($15.99), which was super nice (my notes said so) and a mouthful of creamy pears, and a 2005 Boutari Moschofilero from Greece ($11.99) that was incredibly fruity but not overpoweringly sweet. There was excellent balance in the fruit and flavor and this bargain wine became the first Greek wine in my cellar.

The five-hour extravaganza featured 107 distributor tables, each table armed with seven to ten various varietals.

With 15 different catering services on hand to provide stomach-filling and palate-refreshing dishes, the gala event was packed with thousands of people swirling, smelling, tasting and dining for a mere $25.

A rough examination of my tasting notes shows that I sampled about 110 wines. Several wines were extraordinary.

(At a tasting, don’t be scared to ask the pourer questions. Most are incredibly knowledgeable and friendly. When you get your sample, if you are done talking with the pourer, step aside and let others in, step back with your friends or strike up a conversation. Wine is the best conversational beverage in the world. Enjoy it. Don’t be the person rushing from table to table to get a taste of $100 wines; those people are like nails on a chalkboard.)

Once the wine was poured, I would inhale the aroma deeply. A few seconds after each smell, I would take a sip of my small sample. As the wine swished around my mouth, I would think about what flavors I was experiencing. After about 10 seconds, I would lean over and spit the wine into a bucket on the table, so I didn’t destroy my palate and totally wash out my taste buds. A few seconds later, I would write down the essence of the wine, the nose, the flavors, the taste and the finish. Sometimes, I would write just a word or two or occasionally a sentence. Here are some examples of my notes:

“The 2005 Signal Hill Malbec from South Africa ($22.99) had a dark chocolate and smoky taste to accompany a long finish. The 2003 Ehlers Cabernet Sauvignon from Napa Valley, Calif., ($25.99) was like a mouthful of dark purple raspberries. Gaja Ca Marcanda Promis 2004 from Tuscany, Italy, ($39.99) was soft and had supple black cherries on the mid-palate. The 2005 Catena Malbec from Argentina was an easy drink having a smoky flavored masterpiece and, in time, might prove to be the star of this wine show.