A Summery White for Chilling and Grilling

We had a heat wave in LA recently, with temperatures well into the 90s. It was a not-so-gentle reminder of the high temperatures to come. Do you have your summer whites on hand for the first time the mercury climbs into the stratosphere?

If not, consider picking up the 2007 Big House Wine Company Big House White. (suggested retail $9.99; available for $7-$12 throughout the country) It's a blend of Muscat Canelli, Viognier, Sauvignon Blanc, Malvasia Bianca, Vermentino, and Muscat de Gaillo. And while some wines blended from this many grapes can be a bit mushy in the taste department and leave you wondering why they bothered to mix them all together, this blend works to produce a white wine that is perfect for chilling down and sipping on the patio while you grill up some fish or chicken. This may be the quintessential summer sipper with its aromas of peach, apricot, and blood orange lurking under a Stelvin closure. Flavors of blood orange and peach predominate, all wrapped up in a sweet and honeyed aftertaste. Even so, there's enough acidity to keep the wine lively and interesting. Excellent QPR given the wine's price and its well-balanced flavors.

This wine would be just as at home with spicy Asian food as it would be with grilled food, and it's a perfect partner for salads, too. We had ours with the cover recipe from a recent issue of Bon Appetit: a salad of grilled chicken, radish, cucumber, and tarragon pesto. I often pair tarragon with Sauvignon Blanc, but if you don't get it just right the tastes can sometimes be jarring. This wine was great with the strong flavors of the radish and tarragon, and had the right blend of softness and acidity to pair with the cucumbers and greens.

Full Disclosure: I received this wine as a sample.

Unoaked Bubbles: Moscato

This week we've been celebrating the 3rd anniversary of the wine blogosphere's most popular event, Wine Blogging Wednesday. The theme for this month's tasting was unoaked chardonnay, and I decided to feature unoaked wines all week. First up was an unoaked pinot noir, then an unoaked chardonnay. But what celebration would be complete without a little sparkle?

Most sparkling wine undergo some time in the barrel, but there's one sparkler that never seems to get wooded, and that's sparkling moscato. This is not a big, complex, bubbly wine. Nor is it a dry wine. But if you are looking for something off-dry and slightly sparkling, moscato can be a very good choice. Made from the muscat canelli or moscato bianco varietal, the most famous are made in the region surrounding Asti, but I tried a local moscato made in Mendocino County, and it had very good QPR.

The 2006 Enotria Moscato (available from merchants for between $12 and $15) is made by the Graziano Family of winemakers. The wine is a pale, watery gold in color and as with most well-made moscatos, the first thing that hits you are the aromas of flowers and citrus fruit. The flavors of peach and lemon accent these wonderful aromatics which fill your head with every sip and transport you to summer, no matter what time of year. This wine is off-dry, but a strong core of acidity kept it in good balance. Its slight effervescence was not as fizzy as Italian versions of this wine that I've had. With only 10% alcohol by volume it can serve as a stand-alone sipper or as a dessert wine. I can't honestly think of a good food option, with the possible exception of peach cobbler. It would be fantastic with that. I just drank it on its own, and enjoyed every mildly intoxicating sip.

In addition to its low alcohol, a moscato like this is perfect for summertime drinking because it benefits from having a good chill. If you are sweating in the summer heat, try to find a bottle of this refreshing wine, pop it in the fridge for an hour, and then sit outside in the evening and sip a glass. Instant coolness.

Happy Birthday, Wine Blogging Wednesday. Here's to a great 4th year, and many more years to come.

A Honey of a Wine

I love white dessert wines, never more so than in summer when their honeyed color, aromas, and flavors seem to contain the essence of the season. And, most white dessert wines (unlike ports or late harvest zinfandels) have relatively low alcohol levels, which is always welcome at the end of a meal, or on a hot day.

Recently I found a honey of a dessert wine made from muscat canelli grapes. The 2003 Robert Pecota Muscat Canelli Moscato d'Andrea ($11.99/375ml, Beverages & More) is perhaps the best value in US dessert wine I've ever had. They've been producing this wine for over 20 years, and it's no wonder. The wine is pale gold color, rather than the intense golden color of a sauternes or late harvest Sauvignon Blanc. Opening the wine I knew I was going to love it because of its pronounced aromas of honey and beeswax. Sipping the wine revealed a satiny texture, and as the wine warmed up there were lovely scents of honeysuckle, orange blossom, and lemon. These were echoed in the wine's flavors, and accompanied by a bit of rich creme fraiche roundness and tanginess in the finish. The wine's honeyed notes give it the illusion of botyritis, even though that is not present in this wine. Not overpoweringly sweet, and just 11.2% alc./vol., it is outstanding in its complexity. At a little over $10, this wine certainly qualifies as having excellent QPR. This wine is perfect to sip on its own, or pair it with some sliced peaches or a few simple cookies, such as madeleines.

Robert Pecota Winery has long been based in Calistoga, but the owners "downsized" in the summer of 2006 by selling their estate vineyard to Jess Jackson's Artisan label and moving to nearby Bennett Lane where they will continue to produce wines under the Pecota label. As the grapes for this wine come from the Solari Vineyard in Calistoga, I don't think the move will make a difference to production in this case. Here's looking to another 20 years of this delicious dessert wine.