Champagne and sparkling wine tasting

I'm not much of a drinker, but a few years ago, I discovered Moscato di Asti.

My mother watches this Japanese cooking show that either my aunt or one of my cousins sends to us on videotape. Over and over again, the cooks talk about dessert wines.And she would repeatedly ask me about dessert wines. Like I know wines.

So I was in Whole Foods in Atlanta and I asked the guy in the wine department where the dessert wines were. He pointed me to a huge section. I must have looked bewildered because he started asking questions and then he came up with a bottle and told me to try it. It was a Moscato di Asti.

I bought it.

I got home one evening and my mother and her friend had opened the bottle and they were drinking. Both of them told me how much they liked it. Two little old Japanese women sitting around drinking a sweet, sparkling wine. How cute is that?

Since then, I've bought several other bottles, but my mother said none were as good as the one I bought at Whole Foods. Of course, neither one of us wrote down the name of the wine.

Meritage Cafe, 1350 13th St., will hold a champagne and sparkling wine tasting at 7 p.m. Tuesday. Reservations are required because there will be seating for 36 people only.

Maybe that wine will be one of the ones served.

The tasting menu may include "small plates" or appetizers of truffled popcorn, Parmesan chips with goat cheese mousse, salmon and tuna tartare on cucumber with wasabi tobiko, braised fennel with fresh figs, proscuitto-wrapped pear, deviled quail eggs topped with caviar on toast and mushroom pate. Each wine will be offered with a paired small plate or appetizer. Sound yummy?

The tasting costs $49, plus tax and gratuity.

Call 706-327-0707.