BILL KNOTT
SUMMER RED WINE? JUST CHILL
Now that every man, woman and their various frolicking dogs have invaded parks, beaches and beauty spots in search of some suitably distanced sociability, it seems sensible to consider what to drink on such occasions.
My fellow Oldie contributor the estimable Prue Leith was asked on Radio 4 recently what she would take to a picnic: something chilled and fruity for the children, she replied – a jug of home-made lemonade, perhaps – and a hip flask of something spirituous for the grown-ups, to give the innocuous drink a furtive boost.
My favourite picnic dish is vitello tonnato, the northern Italian dish of sliced veal layered with tuna and anchovy mayonnaise, liberally dotted with capers.
And recent onerous research – a long lunch in a friend’s back garden – has revealed the best wine to go with it is a lightly chilled red. I found success with both Waitrose Cellar’s reliably delicious Saumur Les Nivières (£9.99, but frequently on offer) and the Wine Society’s fruity Beaujolais-villages (£7.95).
While the two grapes involved – Cabernet Franc and Gamay, respectively – are both capable of making serious, long-lasting wines, it is the younger, more frivolous, less tannic expressions of these varieties that work best at lower temperatures.
Chill a bottle in the fridge for a couple of hours, then wrap it in a damp tea towel: by the time you fling the tartan rug on the herbe for your déjeuner, it will be as cool as some cucumbers, as Wodehouse’s chef Anatole used to say.
And, unlike a white or a rosé, should it warm up a little, it will remain eminently drinkable, unlike the warm, sorry dregs of a Pinot Grigio. There is something splendidly sunny about light reds, too, with summer pudding-like fruit on the palate and a ruby glint from the glass.
Tannin – or a lack of it – is unrelated to colour, though. Take Dolcetto, the Piedmontese grape whose skins contain such high levels of anthocyanins (also found in raspberries and blueberries) that its wine was once nefariously used to add colour to Barolo, made from the paler but more prestigious Nebbiolo.
Chill a Barolo and it will taste like gum-furringly cold tea. A deep red Dolcetto, by contrast, will slip down a treat, like grown-up Ribena. As will light Pinot Noir, from Sancerre or Alsace, or Zweigelt, from Austria.
Whatever wine you serve alfresco, it will taste much better from a proper glass. I am not suggesting a full-scale Victorian picnic – liveried footmen being a little thin on the ground these days – but wine does not benefit from being served in enamelled tin or disposable plastic. Pack a few wine glasses in with the lobster rolls, plovers’ eggs and larks’ tongues. Your guests – and your palate – will thank you for it.