You don’t have to be a wino to appreciate the concept behind The Tasting Room, which just opened its newest location on the west side of Houston about 10 days ago. It’s an upscale but relaxed restaurant, where you can eat lunch or dinner and pair your meal with wine, as well as purchase retail bottles to go. You can also store your wine in your own wine locker (think rustic/industrial wine cages) for a monthly fee, or sample an expensive wine at a fraction of the usual cost.

The new CityCentre location of The Tasting Room is much larger in scale (14,000 square feet, with an enormous outdoor patio and wood burning pizza oven) than the other two Houston locations, but stays true to its original Uptown Park roots: knowledgable staff to help you purchase something you’ll remember while offering a menu that you could come back for, even if you’re not inclined to buy a bottle of vino.

Sophisticated wine enthusiasts may already know about the Italian-designed Enomatic wine “vending” machines, but it was new to this novice, so I’ll share my initial reaction with you: Hello, trouble.

You purchase a card worth, say, $50, and you can then use the Enomatic machine to sample wines you want to try before committing to a bottle. Insert your card, select the bottle you like (the Enomatic display is like a round glass-fronted vending machine) and one of three pour sizes, place your glass below the nozzle and voila. I unknowingly chose a life-changing 4 oz. pour of some $135 dollar bottle of wine that I will likely never be able to purchase — but for less than $5 I could experience what a $135 bottle of wine tastes like. However, three to four full pours later, I can envision myself forgoing the glass and just lapping the wine right out of the dispenser, a little bit of college kid still lingering somewhere hidden in me.

If you choose to enjoy one of my favorite pairings, which I call “alcohol and dessert,” I suggest chef Michael Kramer’s chocolate budino, a rich chocolate pudding with espresso cream and sea salt. I might be on a tight budget, but a decadent $6 dessert and $5 pour of fantasy wine puts me in a whole different mindset.

Prefer to nosh on savory over sweet? We also sampled the prosciutto pizza, which Kramer perfected after he and his team trained under master pizzaiolos in Italy. Arugula and prosciutto are added to the thin, crisp pizza after it comes out of the oven; the cured meat is meltingly delicate, and the arugula was just beginning to wilt. We also loved the platter of cured meats and cheeses served with Marcona almonds and gnocchi with duck confit, frizzled Brussels sprouts and duck cracklins.

The Tasting Room is now open, 818 Town and Country Blvd, at the north end of CityCentre. 281-822-1500