A cheerful and affordable selection of white wines to ease in the summer
It is summer. And we all know what that means boys and girls! Sitting in the sun! Eating ... We interrupt this column to interject the truth! Most readers will order nachos or chicken wings instead of a vegetable. Greasy and salty beat hell out of green and crunchy any day.
The curious thing from a wine point of view is that most of the fluids that work with salads also work with appetizers. Good salad wines are herbaceous, and astringent. Appetizer wines need to offset salt and cut fat — cheese is essentially the minimum amount of protein required to bind the fat and salt into a solid — but not taste sour, particularly in the face of commercial sauces which are sugar, vegetable dyes, and some vinegar.
The best wines for both sets of flavours are fruit forward, slightly sweet with a herbaceous, astringent finish. For those of you not quite sure about those last two qualities, eat a sprig of fresh cilantro. You will notice a bitter taste at the end. Cilantro is so bitter many people can’t eat it until well into their twenties.
There is one further variable to consider and that is the viscosity or “fatness” of the wine. Typically words like “chewy” are applied to fat wines, although more than a few wine writers also use “chewy” to describe tannic wines as well. Acidity — “bright” or “crisp” or “fresh” — tends to thin out the body of the wine, but also marries well with fat and grease. However acidity tends not to work with creamy textures, as it separates out the components.
To answer all of these concerns modern wine makers are resorting to the oldest of traditions of blending wines. Their blends however cover the gamut of wines and you need to pick the one that suits your palate.
Apothic is a white from a label that is not so much a wine as a phenomenon. It has taken North America by storm, rolling over lesser labels like Godzilla over Tokyo. Their great insight was just as most coffee drinkers need a couple of sugars, much of the public needs a sugar hit in their wine.
Their white is primarily Chardonnay that is well oaked to provide creamy texture, and exotic coconut and tropical fruit aromas. The palate is unabashedly sweet but they have balanced out the wine slightly with a shot of Riesling and moscato, both grapes that work well off-dry, and have heady bouquet that even a novice drinker will find appealing.
It was interesting to drink this wine alongside Hot to Trot 14 Hands. The bouquet is slightly floral, but there is great freshness (acidity) and quite a long finish for such an inexpensive wine. This is a really great patio wine, and will work excellently with both nachos or salad. (I’m trying to pretend I’m still under 200 pounds and sticking to the salads.)
Wolftrap white is fascinating because it uses a completely different set of grapes to arrive at much the same result. Where 14 Hands uses Chardonnay, Pinot Gris and Semillon, Wolftrap uses Viognier to provide the body, and Chenin and Grenache blancs to provide the aromatics and acidity. It tastes drier and is certainly more astringent. As an astringency hound I’m more likely to drink Wolftrap than 14 Hands but that is very much a personal choice. You can spend an evening in worse ways than inviting over a couple of friends and drinking the two side by side to make up your own mind.
Menage a Trois, a label designed to make younger consumers giggle, is Chardonnay, moscato and Chenin Blanc. (You could also have fun drawing Venn diagrams of the blends ... who you calling a nerd?) It’s nowhere near as sweet as Apothic, which I would guess comes down to substituting Chenin for Riesling. The astringency is not as assertive as Wolftrap, and the bouquet is more floral and fruity. But it’s reliably brisk and I’d think an excellent accompaniment to any number of things you’re likely to be served on decks across the city. The finish is extremely light, which I imagine appeals to younger drinkers with more sensitive tastebuds.
All of these wines have their place, and it is up to you which one you favour. Were it me, I’d get four or five friends over, line up all four and get some voting done. Beats thinking about senatorial expenses.
Wines of the Week
Wolftrap, South Africa, 2011. $14.19 ★★★★
Hot to Trot 14 Hands, USA, 2010. $18.75 ★★★★
Menage a Trois, 2011, USA, 2011. $17.99 ★★★★
Apothic White, 2011, USA, 2011. $16.99 ★★★