Summer Wine

Summer Solstice came and went without much ado. The only noticeable difference was that my friends all seem ready to howl at the moon. I, myself have been partaking of a bit of the grape more often over the past week.

On one occasion, I had to have some wine. A number of friends helped me drink the overabundance of wine that I don’t want to move to California (after all there are so many wines that I will have to try once I get there).

While we sat in the backyard and enjoyed the music of Soul Asylum a couple of blocks away at Ribfest, we broke into a wide range of wines.

One of the favorites, that I’ve mentioned before, is the Maximus. Originally bought at Happy Harry’s on a whim early in the spring of ‘07, this cabernet blend is one of my favorites of the past couple of years--it even outranks my favorite meritage. The cabernet/merlot blend has a voluptuous body and smooth finish. The dark fruits and smoothed-out tannins made me wish that I had been smart enough to buy 3 more bottles of this when I had the chance.

Another, less pricey favorite of the night was the Rosenblum Pinot Noir. Though a bit lighter than some of the crowd preferred, this wine had enough fruit to make up the difference.

One bottle no one will miss in the future though, is the Grey Fox Zinfandel. An impulse buy when I was out in Chico, Calif., it made me think more of communion than communing with my friends. Still, we had an overall enjoyable night.
Another recent occasion that I must relay, because we turned to a couple of old standards, was a night spent on Doolittle’s patio. The evening was warm so the wine was white and chilled.

To begin, we drank the Pine Ridge Chenin Blanc-Viognier. Crisp and full of citrus notes, it reminded me of a New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc.

And then there was the Sokol Blosser Evolution. The first time that I ever tried this wine, the owner of the establishment I worked at was hoarding it in the back and making all of us believe it was a precious commodity that no one else had.
He was wrong. And I am very glad that he was wrong.

Evolution is a unique wine in the market because it is able to vary its blend of grapes on a regular basis and still keep a loyal following. You can tell how many grape varietals are in your particular bottle by the number on the side (there has been an Evolution number 9, 10, 11, and even 12). I used to be able to name all of the grapes in each rendition-maybe that’s a game you could play with your friends.

And last, I have a short list of wines that you might want to have on hand for a night by the campfire or on the patio now that summer is officially here:

Sokol Blosser Evolution (white blend)
Kim Crawford Sauvignon Blanc