This week’s food topic offers a good rule – hot sauce needs cool wine – and here are four $13 wines guaranteed to soothe the aching tongue after being ravaged by pepper-based abuse. There are also two corollaries to the rule: A gentle touch of sweetness helps the pepper go down a bit easier, and bubbles help clean the palate.
Weingut Hofer Grüner Veltliner ($13 at Grape Vine Market) starts with an advantage. Instead of the normal 0.75 liter, the Hofer comes in a full-liter bottle. And no corkscrew needed, because it has the kind of pop top you open with a church key. Its flavors and aromas are like a ripe green apple with some white pepper sprinkled over it. The Grüner Veltliner grape is set to take over the world, and this is an inexpensive introduction to its charms.
Oregon is Pinot Gris country, and Erath’s Pinot Gris ($13 at Grape Vine, most Twin Liquors, and the Downtown Whole Foods) is very clean, with no wood barrel aging and no malolactic fermentation to get in the way of the pure pear and melon aromas.
Folks grab a beer or a Coke to tame the hot-sauce heat because those beverages are cold and carbonated. Sparkling wines work for the same reasons. Banfi’s Principessa Perlante Gavi ($13 at Costco and Spec’s) is just barely sparkling, but its tiny, scrubbing bubbles offer fast relief. Washington’s Chateau Ste. Michelle has a long history of making high quality, inexpensive sparklers. Their Domaine Ste. Michelle Cuvée Brut ($13 – often much less and available all over town) is a huge seller all over the U.S., because it offers incredible quality for the price.
This article appears in August 22 • 2008.
