As a salad addict one so extreme that some previous existence as a rabbit seems beyond doubt I love the idea of whole meals designed around the sort of dishes John McKenna describes this week. This easy summer food, created mainly out of ingredients that are already in your fridge, deserves to be enhanced with a well chosen bottle tucked in there to cool. We're talking here essentially about unpretentious wines for unpretentious cooking well-priced bottles with straightforward personalities, to enjoy out of doors if the weather god decides to turn benign. For once it's comforting to know that there's not much point spending a fortune, since wind and sun wreak havoc with subtle aromas and flavours. For al fresco drinking, it's more important to choose the right type of wine for the food, and to serve it at the right temperature of which more below.
Your automatic reflex may be to think: light food, light wine, and reach for something white. Depending on what's on the menu, you could be right. Think about the main ingredient in your main course salad, since certain foods undoubtedly taste terrific with certain white wines. Tomatoes, goat's cheese and asparagus are natural partners for Sauvignon Blanc, for instance. Italian whites like Pinot Grigio or Verdicchio can be good with the kind of punchy, salty flavours you might find on a plate of antipasti salami, Parmesan, olives and so on - or even with the ultra-robust kick of a Caesar Salad. Good old Chardonnay goes reasonably well with a broad range of salads, and particularly well where eggs play a key role worth remembering for dishes that incorporate generous dollops of mayonnaise.
So why have I listed no white wines below? Partly because it's so easy to find perfectly drinkable, everyday whites to fit the bill that you need no help from me. But a more fundamental reason is that I feel the true stars of the salad show are too often sidelined. With a little more weight and flavour and, for my money at least, a lot more interest, roses and light reds are often the best bet with main course salads like the ones described above.
First, roses. It's depressing to report that there still seem to be as many wine lovers around the country convinced that rose is nasty sweet stuff as there are shopkeepers who think wilting butterheads equal salad. Let me leap on my favourite summer hobbyhorse and shout loudly that it isn't so or only rarely, so it's high time we rid ourselves of the notion that pink wine is reason to turn pink with shame. Most of the roses in the shops right now are deliciously fruity but resoundingly dry. The main differences in style depend on the grapes used Grenache or Garnacha, Syrah, Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc or even Pinot Noir.
Naturally high in acidity, these are juicy, tangy wines that perfectly offset the fresh flavours of an infinite variety of salads anything from the Salade Nicoise or the Lamb Salad to combinations of chargrilled vegetables or indeed almost any vegetables. Meat and flavoursome fish like tuna, trout or salmon also qualify. Often it's not so much the ingredients as the salad dressing that makes rose work so well: a good vinaigrette will echo the character of the wine with its combination of fruity olive oil and acidic wine vinegar. No wonder it's guzzled so enthusiastically at lunch time in warm wine-producing countries.
There's one lesson we need to apply, however, even in our more temperate climate, and that is to serve rose extremely well chilled. No popping the bottle into the fridge just as you're about the wash the salad leaves. It really should be in there for a couple of hours. A case may even be made for keeping it at the table in an ice bucket or a wine cooler an item I rarely recommend. A much briefer chilling can give young, light red wines a refreshing summer edge. I love the Cabernet Franc-based red wines of the Loire, with their fragrant, herbaceous character, almost as much as the fresh herbs I end up slipping into almost every salad greenery whose aromatic nature reds like Chinon, Bourgueil, Anjou Rouge and Saumur-Champigny amplify so well. Beaujolais paralleling rose with its fragrant fruit and lively acidity is another good red candidate for the cooling treatment. Valpolicella, uncomplicated young Pinot Noir and even the lightest, fruitiest style of Merlot also taste great with salads served a few degrees chillier than usual. Whatever wine you choose, cool it, folks. Even without blistering sun, it's like sunglasses and parasols part of the illusory paraphernalia of summer.
A beautiful bunch
Rose
Chateau de Flaugergues Rose, Coteaux de Languedoc La Mejanelle, 1997 (Dunnes Stores, usually £5.69; on special offer at £4.99 until June 20th). There's simply no beating this Grenache-based beauty for value, allied to delicate fruit and lovely mouthwatering acidity. See Bottle of the Week.
Gran Feudo Navarra Rose, Bodegas Chivite, 1997 (widely available from Superquinn and many other outlets, usually £5.99). Another fresh new vintage of an old favourite from a Spanish region where Garnacha-based roses are a daily treat. Strawberry-scented, with lashings of flavour.
Miguel Torres Santa Digna Cabernet Sauvignon Rose, 1997 (widely available from SuperValu and many independent off-licences, usually £6.99). For an extra pound, an absolutely super wine deliciously floral and fruity. (Torres claims it's like plums, strawberries and grapefruit, an astonishing concoction; I incline towards raspberries and peaches . . .), balanced by plenty of acidity. How do they do it especially when Chile's almost rose-free?
Domaine Vacheron Sancerre Rose, 1995 (Redmonds, Thomas's Foxrock, about £13.50). Now here's a pricier delight the first wine to lift my spirits, as if by magic, after a recent bout of 'flu. Made entirely from Pinot Noir, it has exquisite, subtle flavours that linger tantalisingly.
Summer Red
Vin de Pays d'Oc, 1997 (Marks & Spencer, £5.50). The bright orange sunburst and blunt name on the label may not inspire confidence, but take the plunge. This light red, made mainly from Merlot by Domaines Virginie for M&S, makes for great summer drinking, with ripe berry flavours lifted by a dash of herbs and spice. Super acidity keeps it lively and refreshing.
Chateau de Pimpean Anjou Rouge, 1995 (Terroirs, £7.99). Francoise Gilley of Terroirs is on her own home ground with this succulent light red from Anjou a region we're more inclined to equate with the sweeter style of rose. Try this as a well priced alternative to Beaujolais.
Marc Bredif Chinon, 1996 (Redmonds, £9.99). Another Loire smasher, this time with big aromas of freshly mown grass, admirable peppery punch on the palate and the sort of tangy finish that leads to a rapidly finished glass. A pity there isn't more of it around.
Bottle Of The Week
I've tried it all by itself, as the lead-in to a late summer supper. I've had it with salads of various sorts, paired it with guacamole, put it to the test with spicy Indian chicken, and Chateau de Flaugergues Rose, Coteaux de Languedoc La Mejanelle, 1997 (Dunnes Stores, usually £5.69; on special offer until June 20th at £4.99) sails through stunningly every time. Salad days, indeed! At this price we should all be planning monster garden parties.
