OK, so if the last few posts have been a little too serious or snarky, this one might sound a little too gum-popping casual. Bear with me. Or, rather, Panda.
Last week, at Vinitaly, we were tasting close to 100 wines a day. It's not because I was trying to prove anything to anyone. I just had a lot of people to meet with and a lot more wine to taste. That's the day job, living the dream. So I wish I could have had something to cleanse the palate with, something to help my tongue and the inside of my mouth, to get me through the next Primitivo, the next Barolo, the unavoidably over-oaked Super Tuscan.
Help came a week too late. A package of Bissinger's Pomegranate White Tea Gummy Pandas was given to me. Seems folks at the Dallas Morning News used them for an article, between wine courses, to do just that, clear the palate. I thought, Gummy Pandas? Not even the Bears, a knockoff Panda model? Then I tried them.
Something about the almost neutral quality of the pomegranate and the white tea along with the soft and chewy tannin-absorbency really makes this offbeat combination work. Try them out, if you care to. I'm hooked.
Don't worry, I have more pensive posts pending. While this might seem poised as pandering, it actually is a practical prescription for plain and simple palate cleansing.
Now, if we could just find a solution for the next epidemic that is plaguing the booths at Vinitaly - plumber's butt.
