A seasonal dilemma: it’s a wickedly hot summer’s day and friends are coming over for a barbecue in the backyard. Steaks and burgers are on the menu and the group likes red wine with red meat. This isn’t the time for a precious old vintage that demands reverence and concentration, but even the most easy-going red is going to taste flabby, flat and too strong on such a scorching afternoon…. No worries. Red wine can be cool, too!
It’s a given that serving any wine at the appropriate temperature enhances our enjoyment. When it’s neither too warm nor too cold but right at the Goldilocks median, all the components of the wine align—fruitiness, body, acidity, tannins, oak—just as the winemaker intended. For me, that temperature is somewhere between 60°F and 65°F (16°C and 18°C). Now consider the typical ambient temperatures of a summer afternoon:
YOUR FRIDGE 40°F (4°C)
YOUR AIR-CONDITIONED KITCHEN 72°F (22°C)
YOUR BACKYARD 85°F (30°C)
If you keep your red in the fridge, it’s going to be too cold. If it’s been standing in the kitchen all day, you need to chill it down by a few degrees.
There are several ways to bring a red wine that’s too warm down to optimum serving temperature. Put it in a bucket of water and ice for 15 minutes (it will cool more quickly than if you just use ice as more of the bottle’s surface is exposed to the cold). Put it in the fridge for 30 minutes. The freezer is another option, but don’t leave it in there too long. (Wine expands as it starts to freeze and will force out the cork or break the bottle. Messy.)
Tannin is the problem if you serve red wine too cold. After two or three hours in the fridge, aromas are faint, fruit flavours have dwindled but tannin is exaggerated and the wine tastes astringent, bitter and generally out-of-whack. Some grape varieties naturally have more tannins; others spend extra time on their skins during fermentation to boost tannin extraction. So look for wines made from grapes with lower tannin such as Pinot Noir, Gamay, Corvina and Grenache. With other varieties, younger, simpler, lighter-coloured reds are your best bet.
A trend is starting—red wines that are deliberately designed to be enjoyed chilled.
The revered Italian producer Masi has created this thoroughly modern red that is destined for summertime stardom. Innocent of any oak, it looks like a dark rosé, with Merlot and Corvina grapes from the Veneto offering the fresh but subtle taste of tangy cherry and pomegranate. Organic, naturally fermented and vegan-friendly, it takes kindly to rosé treatment—give it an hour in the fridge.
From Germany’s Pfalz region comes an off-dry, lightbodied blend of Pinot Noir and
Dornfelder, a hybrid variety prized for giving darker colour than most German reds. Lively acidity lifts restrained red berry fruit; close your eyes and you could be drinking rosé.
What’s red, dry and fruity with tons of class and minimal tannin? Food-friendly Pinot Noir is the number one choice for all these reasons. Great Pinots from Burgundy and Ontario deserve your undivided attention (and a temperate environment) but there are plenty of more casual examples that would suit a backyard barbecue party beautifully—with a brief chill to perk up the wine on a hot day.
Here’s an old-vine wine from Chile that seems surprisingly full, dark and rich for a Pinot—and at a real bargain price. Its ripe black cherry fruit is braided with coffee, smoke and prunes with an understated acidity.
Discover such good value for a mature Niagara Pinot! Here, fresh, fruity cherry and strawberry notes lead into a long earthy finish with bright, well-integrated acidity and soft, subtle tannins.
The Sonoma-based winery uses cool coastal-grown fruit to make a rich, ripe wine with cherry-berry flavours. Sweet toasty oak is a big part of the profile. At a hefty 14.5% ABV, everything stays perfectly in place after 30 minutes in the fridge—the slight chill just a gentle wake-up call.
The love-child of Pinot Noir and an ancient white grape variety called Gouais, Gamay Noir is the superstar of its homeland in Beaujolais, France, and also grows beautifully in Ontario. The wines are all about charm—fresh, youthful, lightweight and unpretentious—and the way they are typically made emphasizes tangy fruitiness. They’re very versatile, especially with summer foods, great with fish, charcuterie and tomato dishes, and respond well to a little chilling. A 20- to 30-minute stint in the fridge makes them stand up straight and salute.
Straightforward is the adjective often used to compliment this wine. Plums, strawberries and a floral note hover in the glass, while a touch of spice and a hint of soft tannins give the fruit something to play against.
This Niagara winery gives their Gamay two weeks of skin contact and 10 months in French oak, but the red berry fruit still stands out over any tannin and oaky spice. A bright acidity adds to the foodfriendliness. Chilling briefly on a hot day makes it all the more refreshing.
Making a jug of Sangria is a great way to turn a big red wine into something more easy-going and hot weather–friendly. It’s also the best thing to do if you find yourself with a bottle of red wine in a style you don’t care for—some sweet-tasting, low-acid, inky fruit bomb, for example. Transforming it into Sangria will correct its misdemeanours.
Try this Summertime Sangria
Any good, hearty, inexpensive red will do the trick. In this case, intensity of flavour trumps subtlety and finesse, both of which will be hard to detect once the fruit and vermouth are sharing the jug.
Garnacha (Grenache) from the Rioja region is a traditional Spanish Sangria red, and this example shows why. Full of juicy, tangy red berry flavours, it has a lively acidity to balance the richness of the vermouth. Buy another bottle to drink with dinner and enjoy its verve and length.
Sangria is also a Portuguese tradition. This big, smooth red blends Aragonês, Castelão and Touriga Nacional to bring ripe red and black fruit flavours that linger nicely on the palate.
Soft, velvety tannins lurk in the depths of this easygoing but spicy Primitivo from the heel of Italy, hidden beneath a cloak of ripe plum, prune and chocolate-cherry flavours. The fresh fruit in the Sangria contrasts nicely with the wine’s well-rounded weight.
If you can’t face the fuss of making Sangria, there are other ways to find red-wine refreshment on a hot afternoon.
In a perfect world, you could fill ice cube trays with red wine, put them in the freezer for four hours, blitz them for 10 seconds in a blender and you’d have a Red Wine Slushie. Tried it. Didn’t work. It just tasted weird and bitterly tannic, the wine’s normal fruitiness gone. Instead, combine 1 cup (250 mL) red wine, 1 cup (250 mL) frozen berries, I cup (250 mL) crushed ice and 2 to 3 level tbsp (30 to 45 mL) sugar in a blender. Blitz briefly and pour into glasses. Or tip it into a tray and refreeze, then scrape into bowls for a delicious dessert granita.
Also called Calimocho or Rioja Libre, this simple libation was invented in Spain’s Basque country during the 1920s—or the 1970s, depending on who you ask—as a way of disguising disappointingly sour dry red wine. Better to use a wine you like, but not something too precious, as you will be diluting it half-and-half with Classic Coke, on the rocks, with a squeeze of lemon. Add a dash of bitters if you want to go really fancy. How does it taste? Surprisingly sophisticated.
Simplicity itself. Choose a fruity wine with low tannins and minimal oakiness such as Gamay or Valpolicella. Pour some into a glass and add ice and club soda. Done! And maybe a slice of fresh orange for a garnish. And if you really want to gild the lily, a shot of Aperol or Cointreau. Then what about switching out the soda for ginger ale or some elegant, lightweight mixer such as Fever-Tree’s Elderflower Tonic…? It stopped being a Spritzer a while back.