Off-white. If you're painting your kitchen or placing an order for a pique polo from J. Crew, that means not quite stark, sterile hospital white. More like a softer ecru, or egg-shell. Sort of cream, but not as yellow. I know what off-white is.
Off-dry? When Beau from Basic Juice, this month's host of Wine Blogging Wednesday announced the theme as off-dry, I was at a loss. Off-dry must mean not quite desert dry, right? More like a softer...what? Not sweet. Somewhere in the middle of that spectrum between the sec of Sancerre (I stole that from Beau - I have no idea what a Sancerre tastes like, though apparently, it is quite dry) and the sweet of a Snickers bar. Oy. For my tastebuds calibrated for Welch's, anything other than a vin d'glaciere is going to make me *tst tst*
light, bright moscato d'asti
But hidden away in the comments, Beau mentioned Moscato d'Asti in response to Sam's request for help. *eek!* I did a little dance. I did a soft triple clap under my grinning chin. I love Moscato d'Asti and had absolutely no idea that it could possibly be considered off-dry. And how very convenient that we had a bottle of cheap Corte Dei Balbi Soprani Moscato d'Asti. Cheap because one, it's something like $10 in the store, and two, because we didn't even have to buy it anyway. Perfect.
Uh, perfect except that I have a horrible confession to make here. We, okay fine, it was me. I put the bottle in the freezer to do a turbo-charged chill because I just can't drink beautiful bubbly sweet moscato at room temperature. *blush* Wait, it gets worse. I forgot about it. We were playing Trivial Pursuit, so I forgot about it for a long time (Damn those sports and hobbies questions. Damn them all!) The bottle was almost completely iced over into a semi-frozen fizzy moscato slushy, pushing the cork halfway out. We wrestled with that stubborn, cantankerous cork that wouldn't budge for a dime. You think cookie crumbs in bed are bad? How about cork crumbs all over the kitchen floor? *sigh*
But when all those foul little cork remains that were wedged in the neck finally came out, the moscato d'asti was back to its fully liquid format. *yay* I don't know if semi-freezing then thawing affects it or not. If it does, I certainly didn't notice it. After all that effort to open the bottle, pour me something! We poured it into our glasses - tiny little bubbles in a glittering, very very pale, dare I say off-yellow? If I weren't paying attention, I might even call it clear white, with only the faintest tint of gold.
I still don't know anything beyond "fruity" or "flowery," as descriptors, so upon tasting, I could only say it was fruity, in a summery, breezy, sexy Copacabana sort of way. But unfortunately, it wasn't what I imagine off-dry would taste like. The Corte Dei Balbi Soprani was pretty much not dry. It was sweet. That makes sense, since it is only 5.5% alcohol. Barely enough of a buzz to get me through sweeping those damned cork crumbs up off the kitchen floor ;)
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