As it is still baking hot out there, there is plenty of time to try some more ‘summer wines’
Over the last two weeks we have discovered that summer is the most challenging season for wine drinkers. As April and May give way to June and July, the range of agreeable wines grows increasingly limited. As I have said in the past, I am rarely inclined, for example, to reach for a warm, robust Ch?teauneuf-du-Pape when the asphalt is melting – I would rather have it in November.
It is not just that our taste for wine is influenced by the weather. The taste of the wine is too. Heat is the enemy of most high-end wines. It can kill them in the bottle. A wine exposed to excessive heat will often taste of baked or stewed fruits and it can also ruin them at the table. I was in Burgundy during a heat wave in the mid eighties and with my common sense evidently compromised by the soaring temperatures, I decided one Saturday afternoon that the al fresco dinner my partner and I had planned for that evening required a special wine, so I coughed up STG£100 for a bottle of the 1979 Comte de Vogue Chambole Musigny Premier Cru. I had had the wine before on somebody else’s dime and it was terrific. But on that night in that sauna, it refused to sing. Sitting on the table, it turned warm and shapeless; exiled to the fridge to cool off for a few minutes, it turned hard and surly. The wine was meant to please us; we couldn’t seem to please it.
Over the last couple of issues however, we have seen that there are a number of light, refreshing wines, and many of them are dirt cheap. Ros?s, for instance, are getting some much deserved play these days. Because of their pink colour, they were long associated in the minds of many wine drinkers with a sweet drink. Perhaps it was because of the old, sweet, fizzy wines like Mateus or more recently some of the execrable Cyprus ros?s, some used to taste more like soda pop than a wine that made us turn an eyebrow and a nose at the very thought of a glass of ros?. Maybe it is the whole pink thing. Get over it. If you do nothing else for yourself this summer, buy and enjoy some of the inexpensive wines that will be featured next week… They are the perfect cocktail wine served well-chilled on the patio on a hot summer night, and they fit like a glove with chicken, veal, duck, fish and many pastas. I generally like the ros?s from Cyprus, Greece, France, Spain and Italy, countries where they are taken seriously. The best of these are very dry. They are beautiful to look at, delightful to drink and very affordable. What’s not to like? Find out next week, in the meantime some more Cyprus wines.
Wines of the week
2006 Melapsopodi, Pafos Regional, Tsalapatis Wines, Polemi, Alcohol Volume 13%
The Dijon trained winemaker Andreas Chrysostomou ensures with his Xinisteri that there is a small element of his experience in France in the wine as not much Sauvignon Blanc is available on the island. Lemony, pale green, clear and limpid, fresh, it has grass, banana, peach and melon along with grapefruit and citric aromas with a faint hint of mineral. On the palate it is big and ripe, rich in grapefruit, lime-citric, still grassy with some racy acidity. This is a real summer wine, crisp, dry, a real cool wine. Serve at 6?C. This wine is great with shellfish and tops with Chicken Caesar salad as the acidity cuts through the dressing perfectly.
2004 Rigas, Pafos Regional, Tsalapatis Wines, Polemi, Alcohol Volume 13%
The red in the family, a blend of Mataro and Lefkada. Ruby red with a velvety rim, sour cherries and plums, a touch of cassis, licorice and mint mixed with sweet spice. Smooth in the mouth, a light to medium body wine with round tannins, an aromatic palate with cherries and plums filling the mouth that last more in the aftertaste. Serve now slightly chilled at 16?C with roast pork and apple sauce, pork sausages, charcuterie and roast poultry in tomato-based sauces.
