The nose is downright earthy. There's lots of merlot plum mixed with berries and bright cherry. There's some pepper there, too. (But you wouldn't be thinking about getting this tattoo if you didn't like things a little spicy.)

On the palate you get the sting of the needle, or at least the bright acidity from a young red. That acidity also lifts up the fruit and spicy flavors, just like your skin lifts up when the ink needle hits it 50 times a second.

Like any tattoo, this merlot is going to fade with time, so I recommend drinking it while the ink's still fresh (over the next few years). It's not a long-term ager (not many of Ravenswood's wines are), so you may want to consider getting a temporary tattoo. Sure it may not be as cool as the real deal, but let's be honest: wine isn't that cool. If it were, they wouldn't call us wine geeks, and there'd be a lot more chardonnay leaf tattoos.

Cheers,
TSW

* - WoW's party wine denotation is given to a bottle that you can bring to a party, and it'll make you look good -- but you won't be devastated if you end up not getting any.

Wine may inspire poetry, love and the temporary belief that one is impossibly attractive and/or hilarious, but it rarely inspires a tattoo. Sure, too much wine (though it's usually whiskey) may be a catalyst for permanent body ink, but in the morning, the poor soul with the pounding head and stinging upper arm rarely finds that bicep adorned with a pretty grape leaf or a bottle of Cheval Blanc.

Ravenswood is changing all that. There are a lot people (or at least a dozen) out there sporting raven-circle tattoos, and thankfully, the wine can back up this fanaticism for the Celtic-inspired logo. Enviously-fortunate WoW subscribers have already seen a few Ravenswood beauties make their indelible marks on their email inboxes, so it MUST be good, right?

The color - of the wine - is a dark ruby that gets darn near close to purple, just like a red, heart tattoo that bruised during the process.