(Paso Robles, California) $25
There are a lot of light rosés on the market. This isn’t one of them. This is the sort of old fashioned, spicy, bold, dramatic rosé they drink in the south of Europe with bouillabaisse, gazpacho, and other garlic-laced dishes. Garlic can make many wines go anemic. Not this number.
(Charlottesville, Virginia) $30
Lovely and fresh with just the right edge of delicious bitterness. Thomas Jefferson would have been proud.
(Bot River, South Africa) $35
Rustic and really tasty. Hide the label and serve with BBQ on July 4th and watch your friends be stumped.
(Rogue Valley, OR) $28
The words sangiovese and Oregon are not usually in the same sentence but maybe they occasionally deserve to be. If you like chianti, you’ll love this delicious, fresh sangiovese with all the classic dried cherry, earth, and salty flavor that sangiovese possesses.
(Carneros, CA) $28
The famous George Orwell novel aside, 1984 is also the brand created by Doug Shafer (president of Shafer, Napa Valley) and Elias Fernadez (Shafer’s winemaker). Albariño is about as far from cabernet as a variety can get, but the partners have made a lovely, long white with a rich texture and loads of personality.
(Crete, Greece) $18
Nervy, edgy, packed with white pepper. This dry white lightning bolt of a wine is made with the grapes muscat of spina and the nearly extinct vidiano. Brace yourself. Rhous’ white is like liquid wasabi. And it’s so great with fish. Makes sense, right? Crete is one of the major islands of the Mediterranean.
