Toast spring with a salad-friendly pick from France

One of the great pleasures of the modern era is you are no longer stuck drinking boring old Bordeaux or Napa.

There are a thousand different wine grapes out there. Many of them are grown in spots that until recently had no access to the Saskatchewan market. It’s our willingness to drink outside the box that keeps these wines coming. Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled pinot grigio. Yearn to drink freely!

It’s officially spring out there and, if you’re like me, you are positively lusting after some green crunch. And with green crunch you need a fresh, crisp, dry white. And I have just the wine to toast Persephone this year.

In case you were booted out of that class, Persephone is the goddess of spring. To her, I dedicate a bottle of Brumont Gros Manseng-Sauvignon. You should do the same. These are the grapes of Gascony, a small, gorgeous slice of France wedged between Bordeaux and the Pyrenees. They make wines rivalling Bordeaux but are seldom seen outside the French border. They are also the country of foie gras.

I mention the latter because the province has a food culture well worth exploring. The notion of making a wine that was not food-friendly would produce one of those Gallic stares of disbelief and incomprehension. Mais non, m’sieur. Pas possible.

This is a wine of great texture, crisp citrus flavours, exotic tropical fruits and — surprising in a white wine — solid tannic structure. I can think of few wines as absolutely salad- and sipping-friendly as this one.

Brumont Gros Manseng-Sauvignon, France, 2012. $16 ****