Picking red wines for the barbecue
Out on the patio, in the sunshine, there's nothing wrong with a glass of chilled white or even a rosé.but when the meat starts to sizzle most of us are looking for a full-flavoured red wine.
One of a new generation of southern Italian wines that introduce "foreign" grapes like Cabernet Sauvignon to the traditional blends and employ modern high-tech, temperaturecontrolled winemaking, Montalto Nero d'Avola Cabernet Sauvignon (+229310) $9.99 comes to us from Sicily. Rich dark berry fruit flavours from the native Nero d'Avola wine grape meld with classic blackcurrant Cabernet notes as well as subtle layers of sunbaked thyme and anise.
Most of the meats we barbecue are marinated to tenderize the meat and add flavour. Some are slathered with rich, dark sweet sauces.
Soy sauce and molasses show up everywhere, brown sugar and honey and tomato paste are all common marinade (or sauce) ingredients.
Even red wines need to be sturdy to complement these assertive flavours.
Another Italian wine - from "The Marches," on Italy's eastern Adriatic coast - Tenuta De Angelis Rosso Piceno (+632141) $14.97 is a much more traditional Italian red, blending the local Montepulciano with Italy's ubiquitous red Sangiovese. Behind that "classic" leathery, cherry-berry Sangiovese bite, there's a hearty dose of pepper-spiced black plums and a tantalizing twist of liquorice and molasses.
Between 1914 and 1947 more than a million Italians immigrated to Argentina. A few of these immigrants are credited with bringing Bonarda grape vines to their new home from Italy's Piedemont. For years the workhorse of local Argentine winemaking, Bonarda is starting to get some respect from growers and winemakers at home - in Argentina - and attracting attention among wine lovers abroad.
Ready for ribs or a big rare steak, Argento Reserva Bonarda (+689711) $14.99 has a bright, almost tart and deeply fruity first sip.
There's an abundance of similarly bright black cherry flavours over a distinct and herbal undercurrent of green tea and fennel. Move over Malbec - this Argentine red delivers some of the finest, smoothest ripest tannins you'll find in such a young red wine.
Regardless of the red wine you choose for your barbecue, treat it with kindness. If it's warm on the deck or in the yard, tuck the wine in the fridge for an hour, before bringing it out for sipping. Once you get it outside, keep it in the shade under a table or behind a convenient bush. Don't let it sit in the sun!
Still in the southern hemisphere, turn to Australia for the exceptionally well-balanced Mount Langi Ghiran Billi Billi Shiraz (+91538) $16.99. There's no lack of the explosive blackberry and blueberry flavours we expect from an Australian Shiraz, but they are deliberately restrained. Instead of a sweet jammy finish, there are lingering hints of mint and chili-spiced chocolate.
A dark and very nearly jammy red from our own Okanagan Valley Sandhill VQA Gamay Noir (+627687) $19.99 is made from the red wine grape that makes often unremarkable Beaujolais in southern Burgundy to give us a surprisingly intense and richly fruited red. It's difficult to believe this deep mouthful of dark, jammy blackcurrant and subtle coffee flavours has any relationship to the light Beaujolais reds we get from France.
From Portugal, Quinta Do Crasto Douro Tinto (+499764) $19.99 is twice the quality of any red you might get from another European wine-producing country in this price range.
A blend of Tinta Roriz (aka: Aragonez or Tempranillo) Tinta Barroca, Touriga Francesa and Touriga Nacional brimming with deep ripe cherry flavours that slide into black raspberry.
Spicy truffles and liquorice linger into leather and cedar wood.
Available in very limited quantities Errazuriz Single Vineyard "Don Maximiano Estate" Carmenère (+139782) $22.99 is a textbook example of what this brooding Chilean wine grape can produce. First impressions are deeply fruited black cherry and blackberry. Lingering over the glass will bring on soy, molasses, cloves and cinnamon and something intriguingly woodsy like rain-washed tree-bark. Don't miss this one!!!
Try not to get so distracted by the incredible range and quality of red wines available from all around the wine world that you burn the meat on the barbecue. Even better - delegate the barbecuing and devote yourself to keeping the wine at that perfect semi-chilled temperature.