By DCist Food and Wine Contributor Michael Mugmon.

After work on Friday evenings, DCist ponders our many social options. Head over to the local T.G.I. Friday’s and tell the wait staff that it’s our birthday? Think earnestly about exercising before deciding to watch What I Like About You? More often than not, DCist eschews –- well, postpones –- these alternatives and makes a beeline for the Wine Specialist and its weekly Friday night wine tastings.

On most Fridays, the Wine Specialist –- sandwiched between Meiwah and Lulu’s Club Mardi Gras at 2115 M Street NW –- hosts a knowledgeable wine distributor or two to pour value-priced, interesting wines for customers who happen to pass through on their way home. Two Fridays ago, for example, DCist curiously sampled a Uruguayan tannat (a cotton-mouth-inducing red wine) before picking up a Côtes du Rhône to drink with dinner. That is to say, the pouring is incidental to the shopping.

This Friday, Sept. 30, the pouring comes into its own, as the Wine Specialist hosts a special Champagne tasting to benefit the financially besieged Whitman-Walker Clinic.