Summer is my favorite season. I love to spend my evenings on the terrace, with dinner sizzling on the grill, and the song of crickets in the air. And now that it’s warm at night, with what will we wet our whistles when it’s time to let it all hang out?
It must be time for some summer wine.
It wouldn’t surprise my friends to hear that I like to start the evening, summer or winter, with something bubbly. I was therefore pleased to hear that there’s a new producer on the North Fork, Sparkling Pointe (www.sparklingpointe.com), making only sparkling wines.
The Sparkling Pointe winery and tasting facility, designed by architect extraordinaire Nancy Steelman, will be opening on the North Road (Rte. 48) in Southold this summer. Which means that one and all can make an afternoon excursion to pick a favorite sparkler and bring it home to the patio. It must be a good sign that the winery’s happy owners, Cynthia and Tom Rosicki, look for all the world like Venus and Bacchus together.
For an exceptional value in sparkling wines from France, Simonnet-Febvre in Chablis (not far from Champagne) produces some seriously textured, surprisingly aromatic “Crémant de Bourgogne.” Made from pinot noir, this wine pairs well with Serrano ham or pork satay.
Another newcomer to Long Island, Croteaux Vineyards (www.croteaux.com), is the only vineyard in the United States dedicated exclusively to rosés. Although their winemaking enterprise is new, Michael Croteau is a graphic designer who has been creating label designs for Long Island’s preeminent wineries since the 1980s. And his wife and co-owner, Paula, runs the phenomenal Farmhouse Kitchen Cooking and Baking School in Southold. I’d have to say that this is a duo with great taste.
Calling their wines “Rosé on purpose,” they meet head-on the common perception that rosé is usually a by-product of other wines. On land that’s been farmed since the 1700s, across the street from their historic barns and 19th century farmhouse, they planted three variants or clones of merlot. Harvesting these clones and fermenting them separately, they make three distinctive styles of rosé (each one bearing the number of the clone it was made from) with the help of Raphael’s winemaker, Richard Olsen-Harbich.
All of the wines have the same price, so personal style preference will determine your choice. Bottled in distinctive flint glass of different shapes, each wine shows its color through the bottle, varying from pale pink to salmon and strawberry. With his own family as his client, Mr. Croteau chose to brand his wines with gorgeously contemporary, complementary hues of rose, lavender, emerald and saffron—evocative of a summer garden, or an array of salt water taffy.
All of these rosés are dry, but the lightest, from Pomerol clone 181, has a bit of a tropical fruit tone. Clone 314 is earthier; a bit like cranberries, and the California clone number 3, aged in oak, carries the most weight.
For a white wine to pair with delicate seafood or simple salads, so perfect in summer, one of my top picks for sheer drinking pleasure is the Pellegrini Vineyards (www.pellegrinivineyards.com) East End Select Chardonnay. Also handsomely packaged (with a label designed by owner Bob Pellegrini, who is also a prominent graphic designer), this inexpensive entry incorporates fruit that really shines. It shows the purest ripe, almost peachy chardonnay aromas, and finishes with plenty of verve, and surprising body.
If you’re grilling with herbs, a classic white wine from the Loire Valley that will complement those flavors, while adding the refreshing zing of ripe sauvignon blanc with hints of honeyed melon and sage, is the Lucien Crochet “La Croix du Roy” sancerre.
And although summer is a time for lighter wines, there is still plenty of call for reds. For a red wine that’s memorable and unusual for the East End, try the Borghese (www.castellodiborghese.com) Pinot Noir from the 2005 vintage. There is very little pinot planted on Long Island, due to the difficulty of ripening this tightly clustered variety (known world-wide as the “heartbreak grape”), especially under humid conditions. And most of LI pinot gets harvested early, for sparkling wine.
But when pinot noir does ripen in a warm, dry summer, like 2005, it expresses intricate aromas of black cherry and smoke, with an underlying structure that puts it in the category of serious wine. More delicate than wines from the Bordeaux varietals of cabernet or merlot, this pinot is especially fine with grilled lamb, and even pairs well with slightly charred salmon.
Or, if you’ve been on the bay or the high seas fishing all day, serve it with the one that didn’t get away!
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