Busting Out the Whites Before Memorial Day
By Landon Proctor |
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Every thing has its time and season. Do you drink hot cocoa every day? How much watermelon do you eat around Christmas? Like most food and drink, there are points in the year when any given wine can shine brighter or more spectacularly.
Landon Proctor is the incredibly talented, ass-kicking, and supremely humble wine specialist at Blacklick Wine & Spirits (7199 E Broad St., Blacklick), where he holds weekly wine tastings: Thursdays & Fridays 6 - 8 p.m., Saturdays 1 - 6 p.m.
Photo: Chris Casella
Full-bodied reds warm us through the wintry periods and light, airy whites cool us down during the dog days of summer. A few of the months in between lack some of the obvious extreme weather cues but still have calendar-appropriate wine choices. If you're anything like me, at this point you've been drinking lots of reds since October, and watching the snow considering a melt has inspired you to pick up a white wine. Something tasty. Something serious. Something to get you in the mood for spring, damn it.
A great place to start for a serious white is Chardonnay. I already hear exasperated cries of, "Ugh! Chardonnay? Boring!" Often, yes. There's a lot of over-priced Californian garbage out there. Oak-slathered, popcorn-butter-flavored nonsense you'd do best to avoid. However, consider a un-oaked French Chard like the 2008 Novellum ($12.99); you might be surprised to find it's a Chardonnay that tastes like wine, and not a milkshake. In addition to the generous helping of tropical fruit and white flower aromas, it has an appetizing citric crispness to it that makes it great with food. Speaking of which, it would be hard to find a food this wine would clash with, as it's decidedly well-balanced.
Maybe you've had your fill of un-oaked Chardonnay and you're looking for something else with which to toast the imminent arrival of flowers. Vermentino is Italian, delicious, plentiful, and relatively inexpensive. When you want to hear baby birds chirping and watch rainbows . . . uh, refracting light . . . reach for Vermentino this spring.
Some of the best examples of this wine come from the island of Sardegna off the coast of Italy. If you haven't had many before, Sella & Mosca's 2008 La Cala ($12.99) is a great introduction. Try it with anything you'd put lemon in or on: seafood, chicken, grilled vegetables, risotto, etc.
For the truly jaded and world-weary among us, I offer a genuine novelty - Godello (go-DEH-yo). In general, grapes from Spain are the indie-rock bands you haven't heard that keep getting rhapsodic reviews. Whereas Cabernet Sauvignon and Chardonnay are the Beatles and Rolling Stones of the wine world (read: fantastic and familiar), Godello right now is like Animal Collective and Phoenix were four years ago - incredibly good but as-yet widely unrecognized.
What makes Godello a white wine worth trying? It has a clean minerality similar to German Riesling without being austere, and boasts an uncommonly smooth texture. And when it comes to fruit flavors, it can express everything from melon to peach to lime to pear, depending on the vineyard and vintner. If you're looking for something to help while away the hours before spring cleaning, Abad Dom Bueno makes a wonderful Godello ($15.99) worth trying - and you don't need to squeeze into tight pants to enjoy it.
Originally Published: March 1, 2010
