It’s gonna be a SCORCHER in the city this weekend! What better way to cool off than by tasting wines or, better yet, bringing home a bottle or two to enjoy sitting in front of your AC watching the game? (Yippee! Baseball is back!)

This Friday I bring to you three spots around the city “tasting out” wines worth checking out. For those of you looking to get ahead of the game (no pun intended), note that two are on tap for tonight. Or, if you’re like me and afraid your freckles might melt off should you head to the beach, plan to spend some time in Brookline on Saturday afternoon. Here’s what I know (listed in order of tasting time):

Ball Square Fine Wines ~ Friday, July 18, 4:30p – 7:30p

Looks like Ball Sq is serving up a red (Petite Verdot) and white (Sauvignon Blanc) from Australia, care of Dee Bortoli; a cool, summer white blend from the Pacific Northwest; and a red Vin d’Pays (France). Survey says?? Cheers to that!

Bon Vivant Wine Company ~ Friday, July 18, 5p – 7p

Bon Vivant is tasting out Riesling this weekend. They write, “It is a great varietal for new wine drinkers to explore and expand their palate moving closer to the dry side. The two wines, Sohne Relax and Trimbach from Germany selected to taste this week are great values. Both of these wines have some residual sugar and go great with spicy foods.” Prost!

Brookline Liquor Mart ~ Saturday, July 19, 1p – 5p

BLM is tasting out Wines of Italy on Saturday. They say, “Italy’s varied wine regions and many grape varieties makes for some of the most interesting discoveries. Often we find great values!” I couldn’t agree more!! They will be tasting out 10 different Italian vinos. They recommend getting there early “to avoid disappointment”. Salute!

A few words on decorum. Wine tastings held at local stores are not invitations to get blitzed. Expect a small taste of each wine and feel free to ask the host/pourer about the wine itself – who makes it, what the varietal is, where in the world and how it was made, etc. Then take the time to think about what you are tasting. Give the wine a sniff to see if anything connects for you (does it smell like the leather of your baseball glove? fresh raspberries? citrus? butter? toast? etc.). When you take the first sip, let the wine swirl in your mouth a bit to let the flavors emerge, then savor it as you swallow. Think about how it finishes. Does it satisfy your palate? If not, why not?

You do NOT have to buy a bottle at these tasting. The idea is to allow customers to explore wines you may not pick up on your own, ask questions or peruse the store. Tastings present a fabulous opportunity to see if the store provides adequate customer service, is well-organized/laid out, clean and whether it offers unique or boutique wines. If I offered 2 solid ‘rules of engagement’ for these kinds of tastings they would be: 1) Be respectful & 2) Have fun with it!

What other shop tastings do you know of this weekend? Do you plan to attend one?

When I first started actually tasting what wine was in my glass – you know, the 5 S’s: see, swirl, sniff, savor, swallow – I had a really hard time discerning when a wine offered minerality and when it just had nice acidity. To my beginner palate, the mouthwatering juices in my mouth were one in the same with a wine with a little ‘bite’, if you will. I found I struggled with this concept when tasting white wines more often than reds. Many whites offer crisp, citrusy flavors. I associated this crispness with minerality. But when I really got the hang of tasting – whites and reds alike – I was able to disassociate the two, or detect each of these components separately, should they be evident in the wine.

Let’s start with acidity. If you smell a wine and your mouth waters, you are detecting acidity in the wine. If you take a sip and detect a bit of a tingling sensation on your tongue and/or the inside of your cheeks start to water, you’re also in the money. Acidity heightens the flavor of foods, or makes the wine more “food-friendly” (and also helps it age). This is a great thing, so long as the wine offers complementary amounts of fruit and tannin to balance the acidity present. This is also described as a wine where all the major components (acidity, fruit and tannin) are in balance. Too much acidity and you’ll experience a razor blade slicing through the center of your tongue. Not my idea of a good time….

Now on to the more challenging of the two: minerality. When I think of minerality in wine, I think of it falling into two camps. My preferred of the two is wet stones, you know, like when you are out on a hike and you can almost taste the wet rocks leading up to the waterfall. (Or if you were more adventurous as a kid, just remember actually licking the stone.) Otherwise, minerality for me is more like seltzer water where there is that extra bit of salinity lingering on the midpalate or finish. I know others who associate minerality with chalk dust that floated from the teacher’s chalkboard back in grade school; in that case you’d be experiencing more of a clean, dusty, earthy kind of minerality thing going on. It’s all good.

Why does minerality matter (we’ll save the same conversation on acidity for another day)? It doesn’t really, I suppose. It’s essentially just another term to pick apart all the fun things that could be going on in your glass with any given pour. To me it’s one particular wine term that comes up more often in the summer months, when you’re sitting on your porch drinking some truly fabulous whites, like those from the Loire Valley in France (think Sancerre (Sauvignon Blanc), for example).

What does “minerality”, one of the wine world’s most elusive flavor concepts, mean to you?

You are sitting at a little table in Provence. You have found a quaint cafe, where a small bowl of salted almonds is at the ready before you even have a chance to ask for a glass of water or rose to quench your thirst on a hot day. You quickly find you and your partner are nibbling on local fare – the cafe’s own tapenade and a bit of bread seemed like a good starting place – while you wait for your Nicoise salad to arrive. The St. Andre de Figuerire Vielles Vines rose is taking the edge off, too. Ahh… not too shabby. No, better than shabby. “Now, THIS is summer luv’n”, you think!

Your journal reflects the experience perfectly – even the name of the wine you were drinking… is it possible to have such sensual, tasty goodness at your fingertips again? Once home, you call your local shop and discover they – somewhat shockingly – can get the St. Andre rose you had at that little cafe. Success! The wine buyer agrees to purchase a case for you, just in time to spend the remaining weeks of the summer with your feet up on your own porch patio after a long, hard day back in the daily grind, drinking through that lovely case. And it’s guilt-free drinking too, as you know the 2007 rose won’t last ’til next year – and who knows what next year’s batch will bring?! No need to save it – you’re more than willing to dive right on in.

A couple of weeks later you pick up your much-anticipated case. You quickly return home to prepare a bouillabaisse and whip together a little appetizer of pan bagna so you and your honey can snack a bit sipping on your St. Andre and reminiscing about Provence before you dive into the main course. The wine is already chilled and you pour two glasses enthusiastically. The evening is warm, the bugs aren’t biting and the tapenade is one of your best concoctions yet. Plus, you’ve both had fairly easy workdays and even made it to the gym.

The wine – and moment – is pretty fabulous; and yet somehow it isn’t quite as mind-blowing as what you had remembered. What the !@#?$???

The last time I had a wine I loved during a memorable occasion was the last game of the 2007 (Boston Red Sox) World Series. We were drinking the Winner’s Tank Shiraz. I’ll never forget it. First, it was darn good wine that paired well with our homemade pizza; and second, we won (again)!! And yet I haven’t been able to pick up that bottle of Shiraz again. I’m afraid it just won’t be quite the same…

When’s the last time you savored a bottle and dared to try it again, or couldn’t quite bring yourself to do so? For all of you hanging out on the Pour Favor blog sidelines, this is your moment to “dish”!

If you watched the final match of the 2008 Euro Cup (Spain won vs. Germany) and/or the phenomenal Wimbledon Men’s Final where the Spaniard Rafael Nadal eventually won a nail biter against Roger Federer, then perhaps it is no surprise to you Spain is now also on course to “win” top seed as the world’s largest wine producer. (In case you’re wondering, yes, I already proclaimed “wine is a team sport“. But I was getting more at sportsmanship, rather than the idea of winning or losing….). Back to the wine then, it seems beyond important things like heritage, culture, tradition, and number of suitable grape-growing acres, sound economics matter a heck of a lot, too.

What am I getting at? Well, apparently the French are drinking less domestically (French young’ns just aren’t enjoying the stuff with as much vigor anymore, tisk, tisk!). But a big(ger) part of the challenge they face is actually a national, industry-wide failure to ‘keep up’ with market trends – and up and coming wine regions globally where wine is “better” packaged, cheaper and modernized (from techniques employed, to use of screw caps, etc.).

Unlike the sports pages these days, I haven’t read one article yet where the Spanish are interviewed about this likely takeover in 2015. I wish I had found one. Those offering French perspectives indicate they are ready to fight the good fight and determined to make a comeback (before one is technically necessary in seven years time). They don’t want to lose their crown, of course. And the scare is in them! They recognize they need to make a few adjustments to compete globally.

I don’t pretend to know or even fully appreciate all of the nuances that have contributed to this pending “doom” for the French. (There’s a great Time article from a few years ago I forgot about, which the folks at Vinography reminded me of when I was looking for a bit more perspective on the topic. It’s worth the read if you have a few minutes over lunch today.) But I’m also convinced the French are the least likely in the wine-producing world to want to lose their earned status as quality producers just to edge out the Spanish on the Quantity Produced playing field. So I’m wondering how this is going to pan out.

What I do know is I want my French wines. I want them to be top quality. And I want to pay the price they’re worth.

What’s your take on all this?

Yes, it’s Wine Blogging Wednesday again! Since I knew it was coming up right after my fourth of July getaway, I sneakily packed a few wines in my Survival Kit that fit with this month’s theme: Wines Brought to you by the Letter ‘S’. I also packed two wines which have come to mean Amazing Summer Sipping as far as I’m concerned – and both have an ‘S’ component. I’ve decided to share my thoughts today on the one I realized I just barely favor over the other. (It is only fair I share in the greatest goodness with those who come to read my musings!)

Enter the 2007 Sileni Estates Sauvignon Blanc.

I wasn’t much of a white wine drinker even as little as two years ago. I had been burned one too many times by (oaky) Chardonnay or overly tart (to my taste some years ago) Sauvignon Blanc, arguably the two white varietals you come across most often here in the US. I was only experimenting with half the possibilities and a true wine adventurer needs to at least know what the heck white is all about. So I solicited a little help from my local wine shop. Whenever I wanted a case of wine in the warmer months, I asked the wine manager to throw in a few whites, too. Soon enough I was hooked! The summer months became a fun time to focus on finding new white varietals to beat the heat; the winter could be reserved for my red addiction. Fair is fair.

Why this side story now? Well, the Sileni Sauvignon Blanc is one of those amazing wines I find many palates (red and white drinkers alike) can appreciate, or as in my case, saddle right on up to with an empty glass. Sauvignon Blanc from warmer climates can take on more tropical flavors of banana and pineapple – of course backed by characteristically citrus (lemon/lime) goodness. Sauvignon Blanc from cooler climates (e.g. New Zealand) errs on the grassier, super zesty grapefruit side. Either way it is an intense, lively, herbal, often zippy little number with great acidity to quench thirst on the hottest of summer days. What can I say, cheesy as it may sound, an image of a tall reed of grass blowing in the sea breeze now comes to mind when I find myself sipping Sauvignon Blanc.

Semillon on its own can take on fuller, rich, almost honeyed flavors. It is widely produced in France, particularly in Bordeaux and used in Sauternes. Australia is also becoming a big producer of the grape. When it is blended with the lean, zesty-tart Sauvignon Blanc, this varietal works some serious magic. The best winemakers know just a little bit goes a long way. Without strong-arming, a drop or two of semillon produces lovely, fleshy and refreshing white wines.

What about the Sileni offering, you ask urgently now that I’ve wet your whistle??

I’m always amazed by the color of the Sileni. It is a fairly light, almost star-bright color – when I always anticipate it being more honeyed in color, because of it’s gorgeous richness on the palate. Indeed, while the label doesn’t indicate as much, the winemaker blends in just a touch of tasty Semillon. The result is a fuller bodied Sauvignon Blanc. I find nice tropical fruits, gooseberry freshness and some minerality leap from the glass and similar flavors emerge on the midpalate. Its more typically New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc grapefruit flavors show on the finish. It is so well integrated, the wine’s components dance together harmoniously. We paired it with fresh Swordfish steak, corn on the cob and an apple-cider vinegar coleslaw. The weight of the wine complemented the steakier fish perfectly, and the sweetness of the corn and slaw were brilliantly off-set by the fresh acidity of the wine. Yum, indeed!

What wine with the Letter ‘S’ tickled your tastebuds and fancy this holiday weekend?