Chilling With Pinot Noir
With summer on everyone's mind, the wine writing community tends to obsess about the white wines that we'll all be greedily slurping down over the coming months; but the truth is, there will be plenty of red wines called for, as well as rosés, this summer.
While I am not a huge fan of rich, powerful reds when it's warm out — the heat tends to accentuate both the alcohol and tannin in a wine — I am certainly not against some lighter reds. I am partial to my Italians (Barbera, Schiava, Bardolino), but sometimes you just want a good Pinot to pair with some rich, grilled salmon.
I like my red wine lightly chilled in the summer. Not only is it more refreshing this way, but the light chill helps compensate somewhat for the warming the wine undergoes in the glass when it's hot out. In general, a lighter styled wine is better suited to chilling than a rich, bold red, so here are some of my picks for chilling with Pinot this summer.
—Gregory Dal Piaz, Snooth