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.