Luna di Luna 60/40 Chardonnay and Pinot Grigio Venetian table wine.

I have always been suspicious of blended wines. I know of two types: those made separately and bottled together, and those made of a blend of two (or more) varietals fermented together. I know the latter is more commonplace and the former I have only heard of as an Australian thing (with horrendous results).

It was with this pensiveness that I approached the bottle of 2003 Luna Di Luna 60/40 Chardonnay and Pinot Grigio: a wine picked out in a rush at the store by a lady friend of mine, primarily because of the cool looking cobalt blue bottle and the garishly dressed woman on the label.

It has nary a bouquet to speak of, just an overwhelming sense of cleanness and sharpness without dryness, like a swimming pool in the morning before the chlorine gets thrown in. Searching for some sort of substance (dammit, the Pinot Grigio should at least have given it something) I took my first sip.

Like most white wines, alas, it was predictably… white. It was quite dry; lovers of even the drier Rieslings may not like this. Still, the experience of it in my mouth was just strange. I thought to myself, too clean; there has got to be a catch.

The swallow came with the biggest surprise. As it left my mouth, there was a flourish—a flourish—of salty saliva building in my mouth. It was weird, mainly because I’ve always associated salty spit buildup with impending vomiting. After a few hurried and curious gulps, and after passing it on to a few other friends of mine, the feedback has been consistent: it comes in clean and almost innocuous, and has a salty finish.

In a more cynical period in my life I would have recommended the 2003 Luna Di Luna 60/40 Chardonnay and Pinot Grigio Venetian table wine to anyone curious about the experience of drinking urine. Instead I’ll just say that it is quite reminiscent of seawater, like a morning on a windswept beach. This wine is, ultimately, a mystery I might never understand; I have no intention of shelling out nine dollars for it again.

Am empty bottle of wine and a glass. Remnants of a great night of drinking.

“…Hints of green peppercorns, black coffee and the mild aroma of geriatric sweat.” I just hate describing wines that way; and the wines descibed that way, I tend to hate too.

I am not, and I don’t intend to be, a wine connoisseur. If you asked me today what the differences between the different grape varieties used in wine, I can tell you that I don’t know the difference between a Chardonnay and a Pinot Grigio from a technical standpoint, but I can tell you that I like my Pinot Grigio more than most Chardonnays I’ve had.

After deciding to quit drinking hard liquor and beer except for when I’m out to the bar, I find that wine provides me with a great drinking experience, a decent buzz and no awful aftereffects the morning after. I can’t say the same of vodka, for example, which I can’t have more than a few shots without feeling a generalized weakness in my extremities. Neither can I speak that way of beer, despite having almost every major macrobrew shoved down my throat like American heartland camel piss. Not even the deliciously complex microbrews from stouts to ales can deny the simply fact that because of the hops used in brewing beer, beer is basically bitter.

(And before I leave the topic of beer altogether, I will still have a bottle or two of Magic Hat #9, whose hints of apricots make for a lovely summer afternoon drink on the outside porch of a great friend, while smoking a cigarette—Marlboro mediums, yo—and simply bullshitting about life. It’s certainly a great beer for friendship’s sake.)

Given that my knowledge of wine is next to nothing, I think I can actually write about wine with a different perspective from other erudite writers and drinkers. I’d like to describe more about how I plan to do it, but most of my reviews will focus on the experience of the wine itself, of what went well with it, of the sensations I experience from it.

I’ll be back soon with the first of my reviews.