Wine and wine tasting

I have recently gotten into trying to guess what's in the wine I've bought--like what flavors. I learned a few months ago when I randomly went wine tasting by myself because I didn't have a book to read and I had a few hours with nothing to do at Edgefield. I figured that I might as well check out the hotel and property and stuff going on since I was there and then I found their tasting room. Once I learned that it was only $5 to try a flight of wines, I was sold. Since I was by myself, I decided to play "guess what's in the wine" and I managed to guess at least one ingredient in each. I'm very proud. Anyway, having figured out that this can be a fun little game, I've been playing it more and more. My biggest problem is that wine tasting is generally pretty expensive--we're talking anywhere from $15/20-40 and up. I'm all about the under-10-dollar kinds so I'm working on finding more. However, I did discover that Zupan's (cute fancy grocery store up the street from me) offers free wine tastings of like 4 different wines on Fridays and Saturdays between 3-6. I remembered on sat and went. It was really cool because the guy pouring the wines knew what he was talking about and, most of all, it was free. I should mention that you only get a little sip, not as much as if you were actually wine tasting for real, but, hey, it's free! In case you haven't noticed, I am pretty big on cheap living. This is because some of us are looking for real jobs and don't have much $$. Sad story. For this reason, I tend to by cheap wines (not hard alcohol though, I just can't do it) because I think you can really find some good cheap ones. Trader Joe's is my favorite place for the cheap ones. Also Safeway/Fred Meyer sales are pretty decent. So far my favorites:
*Hogue pinot grigio (and the other white that's not chardonnay--it's not a type of wine I'd heard of but it was really good and a little cheaper)
*Venetian Moon Pinot Gris
*Jumping Cow Riesling (not too sweet though)
*This Spanish one that looks all Mediterranean. It's got maybe a boat in an ocean or something on the label but I forget the name. It's great though.

As you may have noticed, I mainly go for pino gris's because 1. it's summer and white wine is refreshing, 2. I think the cheap pino gris' are better than the cheap chardonnays although I love chardonnays, and 3. I think you can get better cheap white than red. Also I have two reds at the moment--one from Vampire Vineyards (yes, that's the name of the vineyard and it's supposedly owned by vampires. The cork is red. Huge fan.) and the other is called Poizin. It came in a coffin. Haven't tried it yet, but ohhh I will.

My latest theory on finding good wines without being able to taste them first is to read the label. I've found that if there is no description (you know, notes of green apple with a hint of herbs and wildflowers, etc) on the back, it's usually not so good. If there is a description, it's much more promising.