9.06.2006

Wine tasting

Popped into the Fresh Market on Sunday for eggs and water crackers. (They've also got an awesome deal on bulk spinach.)

Rounding the final corner before the cashier, I passed through the wine section - holy crap! Is that Big Tattoo?

And it totally was.

I tried Big Tattoo White two years ago and really enjoyed it. It was the first wine where I could actually taste some of the flavors listed in the tasting notes - one of which is "stone." Stone? Really? But on that night when I first tried Big Tattoo, I listened to my palette and it told me, "Yeah, Kelly. Stone." And I was all, whoa.

Anyway, I liked it and bought a few more bottles before it disappeared from the shelves of Wild Oats. Later, I asked an employee about it, and she said that the vineyard was all out, but perhaps they would make more eventually. (She also said I wasn't the first to ask.)

And thus ended my love affair with Big Tattoo White - until that chance encounter in The Fresh Market. (If by "chance encounter" you mean "huge display of bottles that you'd have to be blind - or drunk already - to miss.")

The wine has a novelty name, a strikingly designed bottle, and a backstory (two brothers - one a wine importer, one a tattoo artist - unite to create a wine to honor their late mother). Mr. Wufflekins has pointed out that these are generally the telltale signs of inferiority, but I find them charming in this case. Also, my purchase of two bottles ($9.99 each) cause a tiny donation to be made to breast-cancer-related charities, and since I'm not running Race for the Cure, it's the least I can do. (That "least I can do" is very close to literal, since the donation per bottle is 50 cents. Still, Big Tattoo's website claims the wine has raised more than $600,000 for charity.)

I'm starting to think maybe I prefer blended wines to pure varietals; I can't remember liking a Pinot Grigio as much as I've liked Big Tattoo or Barefoot Beach White ($5.99 most places - awesome!). Or maybe it's just that those blended wines are sweeter than the Pinots or Chardonnays I usually try (I've backed off from Sauvignon Blanc altogether for being too acidic).

Do I sound like a wine wonk? Don't be fooled - I still can't identify the notes of cantaloupe and citrus and (I dunno) old library books with yellowing pages in most wines, I fill my glass to the top instead of leaving some room for swirling, and I pretty much refuse to pay more than $10 a bottle unless it's something really special. Perhaps I'm less of a wine snob and more of a wino.

2 comments:

TravisG said...

The Party Source carries a really excellent chardonnay by Louis Latour. French aisle, on your left, about midway down above eye level. I'm not crazy about chardonnay, but I'm cuckoo for this one. Buttery, and not oaky (which exhausts my powers of description).

Kelly said...

Thanks, Travis! I'll have to try that one, especially since I don't think I've ever tasted a "buttery" wine. (Or if I did, I didn't notice. I really ought to take some sort of 'how to describe wine" class.)

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