Best wines for summer barbecues and parties

It’s always tricky, working out when to recommend wines for hot, summer days, when so often summer itself can be a slippery concept. Nevertheless, the schools have broken up, the Olympics loom: the calendar points to summer, regardless of what the weather might be doing.

Don’t be afraid of the fridge for reds

Refreshment is a key aspect of wines for drinking at any time, but never more so than on a hot day. Don’t be afraid to chill any red wine for a short while (say 30 mins) before serving it. Reds are generally designed to be drunk at rather less than modern room temperature, and much less than the ambient temperature on a warm day, so a quick chill will make it both more refreshing and bring out the more delicate flavours.

Fizz

Le Monferrine Asti DOCG - £5.50 at Morrison’s

Here’s a guilty pleasure. It’s sweet, it’s fizzy, with a rich grapey flavour that you can serve really chilled to go with picnic-y fruit puddings…or instead of.

Cava Juvé & Camps Selección Reserva 2013 - £11.49 from Waitrose

I’m the first to admit that I’m not a huge Cava fan, but I have a soft spot for this producer, renowned for ageing their Cavas for longer (much longer than the law dictates) on the lees – over 24 months in this case. Apple and citrus fruits combine on the palate, which has lovely freshness.

White

If refreshment is what you’re after, then two white wine styles readily spring to mind: Chablis and Sauvignon Blanc.

Chablis William Fèvre “La Maladière” 2013 - £13.49 mix six price at Majestic

This is “proper” Chablis. Fresh, light and incisive, but in no way short of flavour. It’s not so much about the lemon and green apple fruit as the texture and feel of the wine. This will quench any thirst.

Dog Point Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc 2015 - £13.50 from The Wine Society; £15.50 from Winedirect; £19.99 from Laithwaite’s; also available at independent merchants

This Sauvignon Blanc has developed a dedicated fan base – and with good reason. At a comparative tasting of Marlborough Sauvignon Blancs earlier this year, Dog Point stood out as the most classic expression of the style. It has expressive but balanced flavours, with grapefruit and white pepper.

Rosé

Pure de Mirabeau Côtes de Provence Rosé 2015 - £12.99 from Waitrose

A quintessential Provence rosé, yet it is made by Brit abroad, Stephen Cronk. This is delightfully pale in colour, light and elegant, but with body and flavour. A delight for a sunny evening. Rosés are a great match for all manner of salads, coping admirably with the sharp/oily combination of vinaigrette dressings.

M Signature Champagne Rosé - £20 at Morrison’s

Sometimes you just have to have Champagne and, to capture the spirit of summer, it also has to be pink. You can quickly empty your wallet on rosé Champagne, but here’s one that’s more friendly to those of us who are more flash than cash. Morrison’s own label Champagnes are both good value and classy and this rosé would make a lovely accompaniment to nibbles/smoked salmon and the like.

Red

Waitrose Southern French Grenache 2015 - £6.49 from Waitrose

Hardly an inspiring name for a wine, but this is well suited to a summer barbecue with its ripe, sweet-tasting fruit. I would definitely give this a quick blast in the fridge before cracking it open on a warm evening.

Recchia Bardolino 2015 - £7.99 from Waitrose

Bardolino is a hugely unfashionable style of red wine: pale red colour that is almost rosé and with very light body. Often in the mass produced versions it can also mean sharp acidity and an unappealing weediness. But this, with its pale ruby colour and soft, cherryish fruit is just made for summer picnics. In other words, a perfect summer red.

Italy - the sweet and the serious

One of the many things I love about Italian wines is that the most serious, ageworthy ones can rub along in close proximity with the fun, light and frivolous. UK wine lovers can have a tendency to revere the serious and to view anything sweet and fizzy as not worthy of their attention. Italian drinkers, it seems, have no such qualms. My summer holiday this year in Piedmont provided a wonderful example.

Piedmont is most famous for the twin (or at least sibling) regions of Barolo and Barbaresco either side of the picturesque town of Alba, famous for its truffle market. They produce big-boned, long lived red wines from the Nebbiolo grape which, as they age, can develop haunting aromas of English rose and tar, but with tannins which continue to exert a firm grip.

But a mere grape’s throw away, in villages around the small city of Asti, are Muscat vines which go to make Asti (Asti Spumante as was) and Moscato d’Asti.

Asti tout court is a fully sparkling wine with lowish alcohol, definite sweetness and a musky grapiness. It’s a completely valid style of wine, but the ones we tend to see in this country are made by the big producers and can be rather basic.

Moscato d’Asti is lightly sparkling, deeply fruity and sweet, but with alcohol of around just 4.5-5.5%, generally made on a more artisan scale and have more interest and character as a result.

They can be hard to find – not least because retailers tend not to put them on the shelf with other sparkling wines; and they come in standard bottles and corks, so don’t stand out amongst the still wines either. However, there are some to be found – independent merchants are a happy hunting ground for this kind of thing – and here are a few pointers to get you started. One final tip: you’ll notice these are all 2014 vintage and Moscato d’Asti is a prime example of a DYA (Drink Youngest Available) wine.

Contero Moscato d’Asti di Strevi 2014 - £12.95 from slurp.co.uk and independents

Elio Perrone Moscato d’Asti 2014 - £7.95 from The Wine Society

Vajra Moscato d’Asti 2014 - £13.99 – The Wine Reserve Cobham and other independents

Marco e Vittorio Adriano Moscato d’Asti 2014 - £9.75 (case price) The Good Wine Shop Esher

Piasa San Maurizio Moscato d’Asti 2014 - £11.50 – (case price) The Good Wine Shop Esher

Fifty Shades...and other guilty pleasures

I don’t need to fill you in on the subject matter of the Fifty Shades series of novels I’m sure.  In any case I haven’t read any of them so, in the interest of journalistic integrity, I will not pretend that I have, even for the purposes of an almost entirely spurious wine-based pastiche of the guilty pleasure genre.

Sometimes I want to read something challenging, absorbing, demanding and densely written which will stay with me long after the book has been finished.  Other times I just want a page-turner to while away a few hours:  it will grip at the time but I’ll barely remember having read it in a few days.

When choosing what to eat, sometimes I will relish the prospect of spending time in the kitchen, lavishing attention on what I hope will be a delicious result.  At other times, a takeaway curry will do nicely thank you.

I think you get the drift here. 

Drinking wine should always be a sensory pleasure, but sometimes it is also an involving, almost intellectual exercise.  I have enjoyed some of Bordeaux’s finest wines, and at their very best they can offer an almost transcendent drinking experience.  But equally they can have an austerity that requires attention and appreciation from the drinker.  What I’m saying is that I do have to be in the mood to appreciate them.

When I don’t want to make that effort, what do I reach for?  What is my wine equivalent of a few pages of Fifty Shades?

Sweet and bubbly

Liking sweet wines does feel like an intellectual failing – these are wines for the novice and the young; a childish appetite that should have been lost along the way to becoming a fully functioning adult.  Sweet AND bubbly – well, I can practically feel the noses being looked down.

Moscato

I am not alone in my love for moscato, as it has become the fastest growing wine style in the US.  Sweet, fizzy, sometimes even pink to boot, it is the most unreconstructed of guilty pleasures.

Asti, in Italy, produces sparkling Asti by the lakeful (or, more accurately, tankful).  It used to be called Asti Spumante (meaning sparkling) but the spumante has now been dropped.  If Beverly of Abigail’s Party were going to offer you something fizzy, it would surely have been this.

Regular Asti, with its sweet, fizzy grapiness is great for sloshing onto a fruit salad, but it does have a slightly more well-groomed, but still fun-loving cousin in Moscato d’Asti.

Moscato d’Asti is usually made by smaller producers, in a rather more artisan way.  It is still sweet and fizzy; in fact it is often higher in sugar than regular Asti, though it doesn’t taste it.  It is more lightly sparkling and has wonderful aromas and flavours of ripe pear.  Allied to low alcohol, this is a great wine for rounding off a lunch party – with or without fruit salad.

Recommended moscatos (moscati for sticklers)

Moscato d’Asti 2011, Elio Perrone - £6.50 from The Wine Society

Just 5% alcohol means this is barely wine, but it has plenty of grapey, aromatic fruit to satisfy a sweet toothed wine lover.

Innocent Bystander Pink Moscato 2011/12 – around £6.50-6.99 for a 37.5ml bottle from slurp.co.uk, Guildford Wine Company

Not content with being sweet and fizzy, this adds being pink to its list of crimes against good taste.  A half-bottle with a beer bottle style crown cap it may be, but you won’t find many men propping up the bar with this in their hand.  No matter, they will miss out on the hints of rose petal and red fruit that burst out of this perfect picnic fizz.

Blanquette de Limoux

By the time the Champenois documented their method for making sparkling wines in the late 1600s, the locals of Limoux down in the Languedoc had been making wines with fizz for over a century.  Unfortunately they didn’t get a patent lawyer onto the case and it is Champagne that has become the global brand, rather than Blanquette de Limoux.

Most Blanquette de Limoux is dry, but there is a small production of sweet Blanquette de Limoux Méthode Ancestrale.  This “ancestrale” method involves a second fermentation in the bottle, like Champagne.  Unlike Champagne, some sweetness remains and the alcohol is lower.

Blanquette de Limoux Méthode Ancestrale NV - £9.50 from The Wine Society

The Mauzac grape used to make this has a real appley tang, making this taste like superior Appletiser for grown ups.  It may only be 6.5% alcohol, but probably best to keep an eye on the kids with this super quaffable stuff around.

Brachetto

Brachetto is not half of an Italian cross-dressing comedy duo, but the name of a grape.  This is a step further towards a red wine from the Pink Moscato above, but it is still light, frothy and sweet, with strawberry flavours.  I’ve recommended a fairly pricey and relatively serious (for the style) Brachetto here, but look out for cheaper versions too.

Contero Brachetto d’Acqui 2011 - £15.99 from Virgin Wines

Red fruits, rose petals and only 5.5% alcohol make this a fun fizz on its own, but you could try it with one of those pretty French patisserie glazed strawberry tarts or even as a foil to things chocolatey.

Just as man (or woman) cannot live by bread alone, or indeed read only the most edifying of literature, sometimes a little of what you fancy….well, you know the rest.