Miami Herald wine columnist, Fred Tasker, gave his wines for barbecues on my barbecue radio show (WLRN 91.3 FM, www.wlrn.org) today.
Here are his picks:
Well, it’s barbecue season. We’re informed of that by all the national TV ads by Sears and K-Mart telling us to haul our grills out of the garage from winter storage and dust them off for the summer. Ignoring the fact that the entire southern one-third of the country grills outdoors all year long.
Still, we presume their hearts are in the right places.
So in that forgiving vein, I will give you three wine proposals – a white, a rose and a red – that will get you through the summer without barbecuing your wallet.
Now, I know Linda expects me to suggest a champagne for the white wine. I would, but that would be predictable. So I will suggest an almost-champagne. A nice Italian prosecco. A prosecco is a trendy version of champagne, with softer bubbles and sometimes a hint of sweetness, made from the prosecco grape.
A good example is the Martini & Rossi Prosecco from Italy: light, lemony, slightly sweet, spritzy; $14.50.
OK, now you’ll need a good rose wine to go with grilled salmon, picnic tuna salad sandwiches and so on. A good one to try is the De Casta Rosé by Miguel Torres of Spain, on supermarket shelves, with spicy, strawberry flavors, for a low, low $9. And you need a good barbecue red. With good old American barbecue, I think you’re almost legally required to drink a good old American red zinfandel. For a good inexpensive one, you can’t go wrong with a Kendall Jackson Zinfandel at $15. It’s packed with spice and red raspberry flavors. Just the thing with those baby-back ribs with that sweet, spicy barbecue sauce.
And these can get you all the way through to the end of the barbecue season – whenever Madison Avenue Ad execs tell us that is.
