Selling summer wine

Cheers, June, 2005 by Pameladevi Govinda

We all know the feeling, come the dog days of summer, when nothing but a cold beer will do. It is a common mood, even among the most fervent wine enthusiasts. So what's a sommelier to do to entice customers into ordering up some vino when the mercury is up?

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

Most wine directors change or at least alter their wine lists to suit the season, just as a chef may change his menu as winter becomes spring, summer turns to fall. When summer comes around, many wine directors naturally go with the flow of the food and the weather, bringing on lighter, brighter wines that won't weigh down the palate or leave customers feeling overwhelmed by powerful alcohol levels, the way a big 15.5 percent cabernet might. Mark Mendoza at SONA in Los Angeles says that he likes to increase his offerings of crisp white rieslings, both by the glass and by the bottle. "One of the great things about some of the cooler climate rieslings from the likes of Germany is that you can drink a whole bottle by yourself and not get drunk because the alcohol levels aren't as high as some other wine producing regions around the world."

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

In Las Vegas at the MGM Grand, wine director Jaime Smith favors what he refers to as "high altitude, marginal climate wines" at a time of the year when the atmosphere outside can seem quite the opposite: flat and very hot. Offering bright whites from the Loire, Galicia, Chablis, the Mosel, Friuli and the Wachau in Austria, is the closest you can get to a vibrant thirst quencher that will keep the wine drinking crowd, well, drinking wine.

Mendoza takes it a step further come the summer by replacing one style of the same white wine grape with another. For example, "I intend to switch the Kabinett riesling I'm currently pouring, that has some residual sugar, to another drier, crisper riesling from Germany or maybe Austria." Warm summers aside, he also likes to have the widest variety of wines, more than fifty available by the glass, to suit the food of chefs David and Michelle Myers. Mendoza says David loves to create impulse-driven, spur of the moment tasting menus, and the wine director needs to be ready for it. He offers confidently, "I feel I have all bases covered."

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

SEASONAL WINE AND FOOD

At a time of the year when chefs become excited about menus that incorporate the promise of summer's bounty, thinking about what wine to offer with certain dishes poses all sorts of possibilities for the sommelier. Jill Roberts, wine director at The Harrison in New York City, says, "I try to think in terms of the chef's food, so I just added a dry, floral and citrusy Malagousia Greek white that will go really well with chef Brian Bistrong's calamari and seafood dishes, and it's also a great white to drink when the weather warms up."

Like any good sommelier, Smith of the MGM Grand believes that wine is an extension of the food, and so at the casino hotel's fine and casual dining establishments, choosing wines that suit summer fare is the way to go. "I try to teach my sommeliers at the MGM Grand about harmony. I love Italian wines because they are harmonious with food and that is the concept that we try to keep going at our restaurants."

As well as stocking up on fragrant white wines, restaurants and bars have witnessed a recent modest rise in the demand for rose, especially when the sultry heat kicks in. Practically every sommelier interviewed increases the number of roses on the list, both by the bottle and by the glass, in the summer. Roberts of The Harrison is a fully-fledged enthusiast of going pink when the season calls for it.

"The first thing most beverage directors think about when summer starts to roll around is rose. I usually like to add one to the list by the glass and ideally about three or four by the bottle. I aim to offer a nice variety from around the world, like a traditional French rose, a Spanish rosado, as well as some more unusual ones such as the Hungarian pink that I just picked up. There are so many different styles of rose out there and it's important to offer different tastes."

Smith concurs when it comes to upping his inventory of salmon-coral and deep hued pink wines. "The main switch we think about in the summer is with an emphasis on pink. I actually just bought a tremendous amount of rose. The Mediterranean countries, in the south of France and some areas of northern Spain are the ones doing it the best. I have a particular preference for buying roses made from grenache because the grape offers weight, terroir nuances and it exudes flavor."

Roses, according to Beth von Benz, wine director at New York City's Guastavino's, can satisfy the desire for a cool refreshing cocktail. "Rose is especially great at this time of the year when the fresh 2004 vintages have just come out. They will even appeal to a cocktail crowd because they can have some of that tart, strawberry, fruit-driven characteristics that you get in many mixed drinks."

To get customers salivating, Rick Pitcher the director of operations for Bar Americain, chef Bobby Flay's recently opened New York City restaurant, says that as soon as those first days of hot weather hits they'll be promoting pink. "We have a raw seafood bar here and we find that when diners see fresh shellfish going out to another table they immediately order some themselves. It's like they have to see it to be tempted. We are going to try and encourage the same thing with our rose by displaying about six bottles on the bar in an antique ice bucket."