For obvious reasons, I addressed the current Winemaker Roundtable question only to makers based in the northern hemisphere. But from the responses received, it’s quite possible that parts of Australia have enjoyed warmer weather during their winter than our own Northwest has experienced through much of this summer.
What wine have you and your family been enjoying most during the recent warm weather—and what, if anything, do you serve it with?
Jason Haas, Tablas Creek Vineyard (California). I am sure that you’ll get this response from dozens of your contributors, but I don’t think there’s a wine that can beat dry rosé for the summer. It’s great on its own, and works with a lot of the summer-weight foods you might want to be eating anyway. Drinking a rich, fully dry rosé with cold fried chicken while sitting at an outdoor concert in the Paso Robles downtown park was my summer pairing revelation! Of course, I drink a lot of our own rosé (the 2009 vintage is a blend of mourvedre, grenache and counoise) but I also love the grenache- and mourvedre-based rosés of the South of France, the pinot noir rosés from Marsannay, and the tempranillo-based rosés of Rioja. I also love that we can find one of our favorites (the Marqués de Cáceres rosé) for around $6 retail locally.
Lamberto Frescobaldi, Marchesi de’ Frescobaldi (Italy). Florence: 41°Celsius, 105.8 Fahrenheit …. Looking for a lovely glass of dry wine, with no more than two grams per liter of residual sugar. Very difficult in this phase of our life. My pleasure is a lovely vermentino from the Tuscan coast, matched with a cold dish of vitello tonnato (veal with tuna sauce). You will love it and you will hope that the heat will not drop too fast.
Klaus Peter Keller, Weingut Keller (Germany). We are at the moment in southern France, where the temperature is above 30oC. What our family likes most at those temperatures when it comes to white wine is a riesling with moderate alcohol. Here are some of my favorites:
2009 Maximin Grünhäuser Herrenberg Riesling Kabinett (with around 25 g/l residual sugar): Such a great wine.
2009 Weingut Emrich Schönleber Halenberg Riesling Trocken: Hasn’t the concentration of his GG but such a mineral drink!
When it comes to red wine on hot summer days, I like ’09 Beaujolais, anything from Mugnier and Rousseau and the reds from Coche-Dury. That’s red riesling!
Mounir Saouma, Lucien Le Moine (France). Rosé from Corsica; it’s more “winey” than a “light drink.” I serve it at 13o or 14oC (55 to 57 Fahrenheit), not very cold. You can have it with almost any food: it’s fresh enough for the white wine category and has enough body to use as a red wine.
Patrick Campbell, Laurel Glen Vineyards (California). I’m drinking no warm weather wine here in California, as it is far colder than normal this summer. It’s red wine season all the way until this cold spell breaks. Then I’ll be heading for German rieslings, though I’m finding that even with those, that hard, acidic core is hard to find these days. It must be getting warmer in the prime regions, as the wines I’m getting, however lovely on the nose, seem to have a softer edge to them. I prefer the old style; perhaps with global warming we’ll have to search out a new great area for growing rieslings?
Pietro Ratti, Renato Ratti (Italy). I’m now with family and friends on the wonderful sea coast of Sardinia (for summer holidays) and enjoying the fruity local white wine Vermentino di Gallura 2009 (from the vermentino grape). The one I’m having right now is a Vermentino di Gallura 2009 named “Canayli” by the co-op Cantina Gallura in Tempio Pausania.
Stéphane Ogier, Domaine Ogier (France). Warm weather means refreshing wines but at the same time somewhat easy drinking—not the “philosophy” bottle you can describe all night. I’ll go with gamay for red, especially Beaujolais 2009, they’re so good. For example, the 2009s from Jean-Louis Dutraive are great!
For white, “mon coeur balance” between riesling from the Mosel (Dr. Loosen!) and Grüner Veltliner from Austria (Domäne Wachau, Pichler . . .).
For bubbles, I love to open an incredible méthode champenoise made with pear: 3% alcohol. It’s made by my friend Eric Bordelet and his products are great, especially the Poiré Granit. I bet you that two people can finish a bottle in five minutes, and then your palate is clean and ready for a good bottle of wine.
Joseph Davis, Arcadian Winery (California). At home we’ve been drinking the last of the 2008 Pink Pisoni Rosé with peaches quartered and drizzled with a little walnut oil, goat cheese and a little mint.
Olivier Humbrecht, Domaine Zind-Humbrecht (France). We are in Scotland and we are enjoying the worst summer for years here, so lots of Gigondas, Châteauneuf and syrah-based wines. Before leaving we did have a good heat wave in Alsace, so lots of dry rieslings. Sounds boring but it’s the truth. Also lots of Champagne, extra brut style.
Brian O’Donnell, Belle Pente (Oregon). Unlike the rest of the country, we haven’t had much of a summer here in the Pacific Northwest. So rosé has not played its usual dominant role as a red-wine substitute. Instead, we are enjoying lighter reds from Piemonte, like Renato Vacca’s terrific 2006 Cantina del Pino Barbera d’Alba, and cru Beaujolais such as the delicious 2007 Domaine du Vissoux Fleurie Les Garants. The Barbera was a great match with fresh garden pesto “Oregon style,” using hazelnuts instead of pine nuts.
On the white side, we’ve been inspired by Paul Grieco’s “Summer of Riesling” extravaganza in NYC and are rediscovering the joys of classically styled wines from the Mosel, like the Selbach-Oster 2006 Zeltinger Sonnenuhr Riesling Spätlese. Bottles of sparkling wine from Burgundy and Alsace are also making frequent appearances in our re-cycling bin. Check out the current edition of the Domaine Huber-Verdereau NV Cremant d’Bourgogne Blanc d’Noir. Last night, it was an incredible match with some Totten Virginica oysters (which, by the way, are native East Coast oysters raised in the South Puget Sound—the best of both worlds—and IMHO one of the top five oysters in the country). Of course, you can always just drink beer when it heats up, but that’s another story.
Pio Boffa, Pio Cesare (Italy). In these recent very hot days here in Piemonte with my family we’ve moved to our summer house on top of our Il Bricco vineyards, in the Barbaresco hills of Treiso. We have had many Piemontese dishes typical of the summertime here. We have started to drink one wine, which comes 100% from an old Piemontese grape variety: grignolino. We discovered that grignolino from a young great vintage, such as 2009, is a perfect wine for these hot summer days, served cool from the cellar, together with tomatoes and basil and extra virgin olive oil, or fresh vitello tonnato, or zucchini flowers.
The grignolino grape does not give a dark color, has a relatively low amount of tannins, has a fresh acidity that’s not too pronounced, and a very floral nose. It’s very fruity, and it’s light and savoury in the mouth—perfect for summer drinking.
Paul Amsellem, Domaine Georges Vernay (France). A very good match we tried last week was a chenin blanc from the Loire region with a pissaladière [a pizza-like dish made without tomatoes, traditionally featuring onions, olives, garlic and anchovies in its classic southern French version]. It was excellent with the warm weather we’re having at this time in the south of France.
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