Wine, wine, wine

Many corks, three ways

"The Globe" - New-ish restaurant on 5th street in ATL. The food is light, yummy, American bistro; good, but the 2 best reasons to go are:

1) Wine tastings on Tuesdays - $10 for 4 wines plus appetizers
2) I look good sitting there - Fabulous, light, airy, euro decor

So T and I were there last night, tasting the wines. The vintner was "Sofia", as in "Coppola", as in "Lost in Translation", as in "a perfect description for what happens to the fun and effervescence inherent in sparkling white wine when you move it from 'mise en bouteille' to an aluminum can".

When the rep asked me what I thought, I truthfully said, "I haven't gotten past the pop-top".

Fortunately, that was only the 1st of 4 wines to taste. That "Blanc de Blanc" was followed by a pretty good pinot grigio, followed by a pretty darn good "rose" pinot noir, finished with a "diamond" blended red which led to a discussion of wine blended with multiple varieties of grapes.

I pontificated that the world of wine was so vast and complicated and confusing and over my head that I'd rather (sort of arbitrarily) limit myself to single-grape wines. That way my imagination can fill-in any subtleties that my completely unsophisticated palate - which is entirely incapable of detecting most flavor nuances in a wine - missed.

Blindfold me and just tell me that that it's a pinot noir from a vineyard on the coast near San Francisco, and I can picture the rocky soil, persistant sunlight, morning dew, caressing breeze, and bobbing vines that nurtured the grapes that now swirled in the glass before me.

Tell me it's a blend and I don't know what to think. To me it's coloring outside the lines, mixing crayons, mashing different Play-doh colors together. I barely grasp that yellow and blue make green, forget trying to teach me what "pinot noir" and "pinot grigio" make ("pinot charcoal"?).

I know it's mostly in my head, but it's my head and I spend most of my time there, so single grapes it is.