Pick Six! Some Top Picks To Celebrate National White Wine Day

Quench your summer thirst with these top white wines that won’t pinch your wallet.

Exploring Refreshing Alternatives

The North Carolina summer can try the hardiest soul. With daily highs in the mid-90s and heat indexes in the triple digits the heat is sweltering.

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Thankfully relief can be found in icily chilled white wine – and there’s no better time to pop open a bottle than right now. National White Wine Day is August 3.

Here’s a refreshing half-dozen picks to tide you over through the summer heat. Many are grapes you may not have yet tried, but all are below $25 – so these wines are refreshing in more ways than one.

Gradis’ciutta Ribolla Gialla 2018 (SRP $21.99)

Ribolla Gialla is a new grape for us. The grape is an ancient European variety that can be traced back to the 13th century and made a comeback in the 19th century. Notes of nuts and apples with creamy texture. No one in our group had tasted this grape before, but it became a favorite. An Italian patio champion!

Umani Ronchi Vellodoro Pecorino 2019 (SRP $16.99)

Italy’s Pecorino is known as the “grape of the sheep” for the presence of this grape in sheep grazing territory. This is a dry wine with soft fruit, good acidity and herbal notes. This is perfect with fish, cheeses and pasta. A steal at $17.

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Gradis’ciutta Friulano 2018 (SRP $21.99)

Friulano is the grape in the famed white wines of Italy’s Friuli region. Also known as Sauvignon Vert, this wine has notes of peach and apples and a rounded finish with some savory notes for interest. One sip transports you to the sun-dappled countryside of Italy!

Umani Ronchi Villa Bianchi Verdicchio dei Castelli di Jesi 2018 (SRP $16.99)

Verdicchio means “little green one” and the grapes are straw colored with green tinges. This is an elegant wine with citrus and minerality and a bit more body than you might expect. It gets brief aging in stainless steel to preserve its fresh flavors.

Azevedo Loureiro e Alvarinho Vinho Verde 2019

Vinho Verde, from Portugal, is know for its amazing refreshment as well as its sub-$10 pricing. Azevedo checks all the boxes. With 70% Loureiro and 30% Alvarinho, this is a fresh, easy-drinking bottle we enjoyed with a patio meal. Citrus and tropical fruit highlight this tasty treat. Vinho Verde is a nice alternative to rosé.

Barone Montalto Pinot Grigio 2019 (SRP $12)

This is a light and lilting wine with elegant flavors of orange blossom and pear. Grapes for this Sicilian wine benefit from a Mediterranean climate and clay soil. We loved the flowing lime highlights with clean, fresh flavors. A perfect wine for pizza or fish. This can be an everyday sipper throughout the summer. 

As we close, here are a couple of thoughts about summer white wine. First, you must make sure the wine is properly chilled. You won’t be able to do so if you put the wine the fridge an hour before guests arrive. Put your wine in the fridge the day before. Your red wines, if being served outside, will also benefit from a slight chill.

If you are entertaining guests outside, don’t bring the chilled wine out until you guests have arrived. That summer heat will melt the ice and warm up the wine in no time. If you are serving appetizers, do so a little bit at a time. No one wants to eat shrimp that’s been sitting out in the sun for three hours.

Cheers and keep it cool!

Full disclosure: These wines were received as marketing samples.

Vinho Verde Wines Hit Perfect Note For Light Refreshment

Seeking a wine that keeps things light and breezy? Look no further than Portugal.

Keep It Mellow

Cheer is in short supply these days. As our nation wrestles with COVID-19 and its terrible toll, we don’t need one more thing to drag us down. That includes the wine we drink.

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The weather in North Carolina has turned decidedly warmer, so it’s time for us to recalibrate our palates. Bring out the chilled whites and rosé!

A wine that’s sure to fit the season and bring a smile to your eyes is Vinho Verde. Vinho Verde is made in the northwest corner of Portugal, and is a category of young wines that are typically low in alcohol and have a spritz of effervescence. Drink them while they are young – there’s no aging required with these fresh-tasting wines.

The Vegan Table

We recently had the chance to taste through four bottles from Portugal: three the traditional Vinho Verde wines and one Alvarinho. To help with our tasting adventure, we drafted our daughter Rachel, a vegan baker and chef, to create a pairing meal.

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For our wines we selected the 2018 Casal de Ventozela and an Alvarinho from Quinta da Calçada. The meal was a vegan delight. The opener was cucumbers in homemade sweet Thai chili sauce. For our entree we savored a Thai yellow coconut curry with brown rice. We finished with chocolate chia pudding with fresh fruits. Oh yes, we had a dessert shooter with pineapple juice, crème de cacao and mango habanero vodka.

The Casal de Ventozela delighted us from the very start. In the glass the wine gushed in a welcome display of bubbles. Vinho Verde isn’t a traditional sparkling wine, but instead is frizzante – light bubbles that greet you and tickle your tongue, but then fade. There are light notes of citrus and melon, just perfect for our Thai-themed meal.

Our second bottle was the Quinta da Calçada Terroir. The Iberian Peninsula (Spain and Portugal) is the very best location for Albariño, or Alvarinho as it is known in Portugal. Quinta da Calçada has been producing wine since 1917, making it one of the oldest producers in the Vinho Verde region. This wine has outstanding minerality, a medium-full body with notes of peach and lemon with a touch of salinity.

The Seafood Table

For our second pair of wines, we moved our meal outside and switched our focus to seafood. It was a gorgeous evening on the patio that later turned into a romantic night under the stars. The Green Dragon prepared cedar plank salmon and shrimp with roasted asparagus and rice. Our meal began with the Manuel Costa & Filhos Melodia Rosé. This is an enticing wine made with Espadeiro and Touriga Nacional grapes. Whereas the other wines painted their canvas with citrus and tree fruit, the rosé was a bright bouquet of red cherries and strawberries. The acidity makes this a great food wine and it blended seamlessly with our shrimp and salmon.

As our evening continued we opened the Encosta do Xisto Vinho Verde. Xisto refers to the local shale, which is made from a mixture of mud, clay and tiny quartz and calcite fragments. This is a dry wine with the pleasing initial fizz. Flavor notes include green apples and peach.

Portuguese wines not only taste delicious, the price is easy to digest too. Many Vino Verde wines are available at prices $10 and below. Enjoy these fresh wines to give your morale a boost and your next meal some zip.

Full disclosure: These wines were received as marketing samples.