Incanto Chardonnay Pinot Grigio

First, let me lay this on the line:  I have coveted this big ass blue bottle of wine every year when Trader Joe’s brings it out around the holiday time.  TJ’s always have special, super huge wine bottles, and they are sooooo appealing to my eyes!  Seriously, every year I want to buy them.  David and I normally grocery shop together, and I know that he, being the more realistic (and once in a while the more responsible) of the two of us must think these big ol’ wine bottles are ridiculous.  And, in my heart, I have always known he was right.  So, year after year I have held back and not snuck one of these big wines into our cart.

But this year – oh, this year I WENT FOR IT!  I got brave enough to snag one of these bottles on a night I was shopping without David actually 😊 .  But look at it – it is gorgeous!  The shape of the bottle.  The size.  But mostly, the color! I mean, how bad would this Italian blend have to taste to undo all of those positives???

Here is David before the bottle was opened.  See - it is LARGE!

So, this holiday season, I got one and we hauled it down to Florida with us.  I thought we might drink it if we had friends over, but (as almost always happens in our lives), we were hermits and didn’t have a dinner party.  We were invited to a friend’s house for New Year’s Day dinner, and I guess it would have been nice to bring this bottle, but it just felt a little strange.  There were going to be 5 people at the meal, and in we would walk with a huge ass bottle of wine?  What if we were the only wine drinkers?

Close up of the label

Now January is ticking by and we still hadn’t opened this bottle...  One night our friend Sarah said she was going to stop by (and I know she likes wine).   Voila – there’s my chance!  I had David open the bottle and the 3 of us did a taste test.  Here is what we thought:

Well isn't this elegant??  Bottle is too big for the fridge

Susan:  Before I can discuss the taste of the wine, I must talk through the logistics of it.  This.  Wine bottle.  Is.  Ridonkulous!!  It is white wine and we wanted it chilled, but the big bottle most certainly could not stand up in our refrigerator.  It ended up lying on its side and taking up a big chunk of the fridge (though to be honest, for a day or so it served as a “shelf” as David rested his used paint brush (wrapped in Saranwrap) on top of the horizontal bottle…).  OK, now on to the taste:  The taste is sort of water-y to me – there is not much taste.  Because of that I wound up drinking it pretty fast.  So, if your goal is to down wine quickly (and therefore feel a bit tipsy quickly…), this might be a good pick.  Artistically it is beautiful.  Logistically it is stupid.  And to be honest, the actual wine seemed sort of incidental!  I will give the taste of this wine 3.75.  If I gave a score for the look of the bottle it would be a 5, but if I gave a score for the usability of the bottle (squishing it in your fridge) it would be a 2.  So, I will average those scores together and give the overall product a score of 3.5.

David gives Incanto a try

David: “I think this is good, it is nice and cold which is good for this wine.  It has a little bit of a fruity taste.  It has a hint of a chardonnay kind of oakiness – I don’t like chardonnay but this was not too much, so I thought it balanced it out kind of nice.  This is not a wine I would seek out, but I am delighted to drink it.  I guess I will give it a 4.  (David added that he should have docked his score because of the unwieldy size of the bottle.)”

Sarah refilling her glass
 (by the way, this bottle is hard to pour, too!  It comes out super fast.)

Sarah: “I did not like this wine at the first sip, because it tasted like chardonnay and I do not normally like chardonnay.  But I kept drinking, and (like most wines) then I enjoyed it more.   It ended up being more fruity than dry, which I liked.  This is a super easy wine to drink.  I will give it a solid 4.5.”

Overall, I suggest only buying this big bottle of wine if you have plans to drink it all in one sitting.  That way you can chill it, uncork it, and drink it all without having to worry about re-corking it to lay sideways in your fridge.

Price:  $12.99 (cheap when you consider it is the equivalent of 2 bottles of wine)

Rating (average of 3 raters):  4