Though I tend to veer towards red wine most of the year, when the sun comes out, all bets are off!
Summer’s lighter food is best paired with lighter beverages – white wine and rosé fit the bill. While I’m certainly no wine expert, I do know what I like. For me, the perfect summer wine must be chilled, crisp, juicy and slightly tart. I leans towards styles that are lighter and unoaked. Sauvignon Blanc, yes; Chardonnay, no.
Here are a few that I’m liking this summer:
Dog Point Sauvignon Blanc. Hailing from New Zealand, a country known for its top quality Sauvignon Blancs, I am in LOVE with this wine. Juicy, with grapefruit and herbal notes, I could drink this every summer night. But that would be bad. And expensive. So I’ll just savour it on special occasions.
Domaine LaFage Côté Est. 
A delicious blend of Grenache Blanc and Vermentino, this wine hails from the French part of Catalonia and is grown on an organic vineyard facing east (hence the est) toward the Mediterranean in Southern France. It’s juicy, refreshing and goes well with food or makes a perfect sipper.
Blue Mountain Pinot Gris.
Produced in the Okanagan, the wine growing area of British Columbia, this Pinot Gris has lots of citrus going on without it being too tart. LOVE. And love even more that it’s Canadian!
I got turned on to roses during a trip to France several years ago and haven’t looked back. I don’t know a lot about roses, but with some experimenting, I know that I like them off dry and not sweet like the roses of yesteryear.
In British Columbia, we’re fortunate to have many producers of roses from the Okanagan and La Stella’s LaStellina Rosato is one of my favourites. This wine is slightly off-dry and a wonderful patio sipper. It screams summer.
I’ve learned that wines are highly subjective and what’s my kind of sip may not be yours. What are you drinking this beautiful season?
