Vicious by Sobon - Petite Sirah @@@@@ (5 corks)

Retails: $8.97 (Total Wine)

When the wine maker comments on your blog and suggests another of his selection to taste...you do it. Well...in my case, so long as it's under $10, I'm down!

Another gorgeous red and another win for Sobon's wine selections. The flavors are beautifully manicured and engulf your palette with a soft, glowing flavor that lingers with a slight dryness on the back of the tongue.

It has a certain earthy quality to it. I could imagine myself sitting on the back porch of an antique home in late summer overlooking fields of acreage, listening to Eddie Vedder (Into the Wild soundtrack, perhaps). There's a certain simplicity in wine's earthen upbringing that is often over-wrought by pretension. Wine is so influenced by weather, dirt, sun, neighboring vegetation, earth's rotation and what have you, that there's something comforting to the notion of enjoying a product whose flavor isn't compromised by chemical introductions. The unfortunate byproduct is peoples' insistence on making wine into an elitist product to be solely enjoyed by those with "advanced palettes." I think wine's only purpose is to be enjoyed. Go forth and enjoy, my friends.

Big Tattoo - Syrah @@@@ (4 corks)

Retails: $8.99 (Total Wine)

Last time I was shopping for wines to drink um...I mean blog about...I decided I needed to broaden my material and write about a Syrah. I don't normally drink Syrah, or Shiraz as it is often called, nor do I know much about them. The thought of venturing into this uncharted territory was kind of exciting for an avid wine drinker like myself.

I was really excited about this bottle in particular.

For Christmas this past year, I bought my family tattoos. No, really. After I got inked for the first time, my mom mentioned she was somewhat envious and upon further conversation, I soon learned that she and my father would be open to the possibility of a family tattoo--both are in their sixties and neither one had ever been inked. Something important and symbolic of our tight-knit family. My mother is French Canadian and since I was a child, my father's only piece of jewelry other than his wedding band, has been a gold fleur de lys on a golden chain. THIS was going to be our tattoo. So, on Christmas Eve, my self, my parents and my younger sister set out to a tattoo parlor in Portland, Maine, with heavy metal blaring, got the symbol of the fleur de lys tattooed: dad on his shoulder, sister on her opposite shoulder, mom on her ankle and me on my foot.

So, you can imagine my excitement when I came across a bottle called Big Tattoo with a giant fleur de lys on the label!

As it turns out, the two brothers who created this wine made it as an homage to their mother who died of breast cancer. One was a tattoo artist the other a wine distributor, hence the name Big Tattoo. The fleur de lys was their mother's favorite symbol. A portion of all their wine sales goes to breast cancer research, as well, making this a worthwhile wine to at least sample. Having lost a grandmother to breast cancer, I was especially touched by the sentiment in this simple bottle of wine.

But, let's get down to the flavor. Like I said, I'm no expert on Syrah, but the flavor strikes me as pretty unusual. The smell is sweet, almost like muscadine grapes, and the initial flavor carries this sweetness. As you swish the wine around in your mouth, however, it begins to turn tart and pucker-y, ending with a big swallow of tannins and dryness in the finish. Pretty unusual, but pretty darn delicious, too. If you're a fan of pinot noir or other robust reds, you'll love this one.

Final Words: Delicious, but I would recommend drinking the bottle in one sitting--no really--the day afterwards it loses some of his sweetness and the finish becomes slightly sour. So, grab a friend and drink up.