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Posted by Robert Whitley on June 12, 2013 at 10:32 AM
I remember a sidewalk cafe on a warm, humid summer day near the historic hotel Le Cep in Beaune, the spiritual center of France's Burgundy district.
One glance at the wine list and my heart sank — Burgundy as far as the eye could see. Under normal circumstances, the offerings of white Burgundy would have been a welcome sight. But on this occasion, with a bright sun beating down, I longed for a cold, crisp, light white wine. Or a rose. Yes, indeed, wine has its seasons, and we are entering a period that calls for gruner veltliner, sauvignon blanc, rose wines from the south of France or the Central Coast of California; or refreshing prosecco from Northern Italy when in the mood for a bubbly.
Gruner, of course, is the Austrian white that is currently in vogue. It typically exhibits bracing acidity with notes of citrus. Gruner is often consumed with steamed or grilled shellfish, but it's delicious on its own and a refreshing palate-pleaser when served well chilled on a warm day. Pfaffl, from a family estate just outside of Vienna, is first-rate and runs about $20. Perhaps the finest domestic gruner is Zocker, made in California's Edna Valley, also costing about $20.
Sauvignon blanc is grown the world over, though it seems to do best in Bordeaux and the Loire Valley regions of France, New Zealand and coastal California. Pascal Jolivet is a trusted source for Sancerre, and it runs about $25 in most parts of the country. Cloudy Bay is the most renowned of all the New Zealand sauvignons, but you will pay upward of $30 when you can find it. For value, few California sauvignons can outshine the Dry Creek Vineyard Fume Blanc at about $14.
Rose wines are difficult to recommend because production of the top wines is generally limited. I enjoy the hunt and am always on the lookout for a good rose. The Eberle winery in Paso Robles produces a delicious rose made from syrah grapes, and it costs $16. If you have a generous budget, then try Domaines Ott from the Provence region in the south of France. It should be in the $40 range.
Prosecco is perfect for summer sipping because it's lighter than Champagne and most domestic bubbly, and generally less expensive. My favorites are Adami and Bisol, each a producer well regarded for exceptional quality. You should be able to source either one for $20 or less.
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 Quite dark in color, with very inviting aromas of ripe fruit with a depth and density that can almost be smelled. There’s also enough smoky new oak to make it advisable to lay this down for several years, but there’s no question that the fruit will prove up to the challenge of outlasting and absorbing the wood component. Although the fruit is quite powerful in its concentration and intensity, there’s still a sense of delicacy to this wine that is appropriate to Barbaresco. 93 Michael Franz
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Robert Whitley
Wine enthusiasts of a certain age will remember the Chianti bottle encased in a fiasco, otherwise known as a straw flask. It was as ubiquitous as the red-checked tablecloth in Italian restaurants of the 1960s. A typical wine list in a neighborhood Italian restaurant of that era would feature several Chianti in fiasco, a token Bardolino, a token Valpolicella, a token soave and a token pinot grigio. Better Italian restaurants would class up their wine lists with a Frascati, the delicious white wine produced from various clones of malvasia, trebbiano and greco grown in the hilly vineyards outside of Rome. Frascati in its heyday was the most popular of the Italian white wines sold in the United States.
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Linda Murphy
During a recent tasting of US wines with Clark Smith of ApellationAmerica.com, Smith pulled out a wine cloaked in a brown paper bag. We had just tasted a dozen or so wines from 'unsuspecting places' -- among them Iowa, Pennsylvania, Alabama and Ohio -- so I figured that the mystery wine had to be really unusual. Like Cyndy Lauper. It was a very pale white wine with a faint minerally aroma. It tasted a bit like lemon-lime soda without the carbonation and sweetness. The finish was crisp, limey and grapefruity. I was certain it wasn't Sauvignon Blanc, Pinot Grigio or a Clare Valley Riesling, and in fact, after sniffing and tasting the wine a few more times, I said to Smith, 'I don't think it's made from grapes. But I don't have a clue as to what the fruit is.' Smith, with a bird-ate-the canary grin, pulled the bottle from the bag and said, 'Avocado!'
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that the fastest way to reach gustatory nirvana is by banging whole steamed crabs with a mallet and picking out the meat, or simmering fresh crabmeat in a soup, or slipping a sautéed soft shell crab into a sandwich. But when there's a special wine to be savored, crab cakes make the miracle match, especially when they're garnished with a dollop of tarragon-spiked aioli.
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Mary Ewing-MulliganBy now you might have heard the story: How the owners of two iconic Napa Valley wineries critically acclaimed for Cabernet and Chardonnay abandoned their comfort zone to establish another winery producing only Pinot Noir -- and not in Napa Valley but in Sonoma County. When I heard that news four years ago, I was more than a bit surprised. Far Niente, one of the two wineries, is an elite Napa Valley wine estate; the other, Nickel & Nickel -- a sister winery dedicated to making vineyard-designated Cabernets (thirteen of them, along with Chardonnay, Merlot and some Zinfandel and Syrah) from the grapes of respected growers -- hit the ground running with its first vintage in 1997. Many winery owners with that much success would stop there.
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The New Frascati
The Journey to Fine Pinot Noir