Wine: Rotari Blanc de Noir (Sparkling)

"Oh, sure, everybody's always up for saving Hitler's brain, but when you put it in the body of a great white shark, suddenly you've gone too far!" (Professor Farnsworth, Futurama)

Go ahead and let people tell you that wine is predictable, that there are a few hard and fast rules. I just listened to a dork yesterday tell someone that you can't get a halfway decent sparkling wine for less than fifty bucks.

He told his date, and I quote, "good, cheap wine is a chimera: it's a mixture of things that do not go together and it is fictional."

Hitler's brain in a great white shark would suck. This part-baby part-bear doll flattens me with terror. Good, cheap wine, though, is another thing altogether.

Let's say you had to make a wine from Pinot Noir grapes (okay, you can use up to 25% Chardonnay) that was almost entirely white (amber/pink will do), and sparkled beautifully. You'd do yourself a favor to get out and by a bottle of Rotari Blanc de Noir. The Rotari, which goes for $10/bottle, is a pleasant, fruity sparkling wine from Italy. Dry and stuffed with cherry aroma, it's a wine that can serve you equally well throughout a movie or at a fancy pants dinner party.

While the Rotari is not a Champagne (it's Italian), it worth remembering John Maynard Keynes when drinking it; he once said, "My only regret in life is that I did not drink more Champagne."

Value: 4.0
Color & Clarity: 4.0
Bouquet: 3.5
Flavor: 3.0