Liquid Love Letter: How to Choose Which Wines to Pour

Cathy

It isn’t like we all stop working during the summertime but somehow, during the summer, there seems to be more time to flex our social muscles outside of work.

Which is why lately, I’ve found myself choosing sets of wines to pour for a group of friends, and shortly after that I’m choosing another set of wines for another group of friends, and another and another.

I have no complaints about this whatsoever. An abundance of friends is one of life’s greatest blessings. All of this summertime socializing does raise an interesting question, though.

How do we know which wines to pour for groups of friends, especially when those are diverse groups of friends with preferences and palates that vary widely?

I’ve been relying on one simple guideline all summer long: Pick a theme.

A theme, that is, that helps to organize my thoughts in preparation, and that orients my guests when they arrive. The “themes” I’ve chosen lately for my wine selections are parts of the world that I know the group of friends is particularly interested in.

Last week, for example, the theme was Spain and Portugal. The wines I poured were from regions of those countries that produce styles that are friendly to a diverse group of people, preferences and palates.

Two wines, one white and one red, set the tone: 2015 Alvarinho from Parcela Única in Portugal, made by Anselmo Mendes, and 2020 Merenzao from Alpendre in D.O. Ribeira Sacra in Spain. Both were welcome, and welcoming, wines, in the sense of being totally approachable (even when served chilled on a hot day) yet also adding something intriguing to the conversation. (You can find the 2017, 2020, and 2021 vintages of Parcela Única Alvarinho here , 2020 Merenzao from Alpendre can be found here .)

Wines like that, and friends like that, make for a great evening: welcoming, approachable, intriguing, and able to hold their own in conversation. Those are exactly the wines to pour. Picking a theme will get you started.

Matthew

With a seemingly endless supply of wines., from new locales and fresh wine brands popping up weekly, how do you select what to drink?

If you have a wine fridge full of wine, or a wine cellar full of wine, how do you select what to drink?

For much of my career I toiled over the perfect pairing. The one magical wine to open in order to complement a dish that a chef or home cook stressed over and invested much of themself into. Providing these transitory experiences is something I strived for, but there's so much to weigh in order to get there.

Truly, how do we select which wines to pour?

Start with: where in the world are you?

Next consider: what do your guests like to drink?

Additional consideration: what is the weather, or what have you drank a lot of recently?

These questions help narrow down an endless palette of potential wines into a smaller subset of what makes sense given your location and dish.

This week while visiting Chateau Montelena in Calistoga, we enjoyed some of the finest wines made in the Napa Valley. Whether it was their 50th Anniversary Chardonnay with dinner at SolBar , or the 1992 Riesling with lunch at the Girl & the Fig , these delicate decisions were made given the company, the weather, and the food. We would have been happy no matter the selections, but the narrowing down and extra care that went into those bottles' selections really made the meals more memorable.