Wednesday, December 3, 2008

Your $10 Recession Wine of the Week: Big Tattoo White 2007


If you've been following this newish feature of mine, I know what you're thinking. "What's the deal? Every Recession wine you recommend is a white wine!"

Well, yeah. In case you haven't notices, red wines, in general, are overpriced and overrated. In hard times, the less-popular (with snobs and collectors, anyhow) world of the white grapes is the place to seek. When I find a good red under $10, I'll let you know.

So here we have the Big Tattoo White 2007, the work of Alex and Erik Bartholomaus of California. It's an interesting blend: 75% riesling with 25% gewurztraminer thrown in.
Grapes are sourced 31% from Monterey County, 44% from Santa Barbara County and 24% from Anderson Valley. (They used to source from Germany when the company began a few years back.)

The gewurz makes for a more fragrant, more viscous wine than would otherwise be the case. The nose hits you with grape, white peach, apricot, gooseberry. The mouthfeel is fuller up front and then becomes drier as it goes along. Again apricot and peach, as well as lychee. There's a nice metallic-stone back with the wine. Pretty good for $10 (as sold by LeNell's in Red Hook).

1 comment:

Dr. Bamboo said...

Here at Chez Bamboo we are huge fans of wine that is 10 bucks a bottle or less (regardless of whether there is a recession in effect)

We're classy like that. ;-)