The GB

Another Reason to Love Wine

I know, I know. A wine cocktail seems like an unnecessary invention: Why not just drink, well, wine? But consider this: Doesn’t tequila with lime juice and Cointreau make a mighty Margarita? Doesn’t rye love to dance with sweet vermouth in a Manhattan? Am I wrong, or doesn’t even that bit of a brute gin like a kiss of dry vermouth to make a lovely Martini?

So here we go—a wine cocktail. I figured that to strike out in this direction I needed a winemaker guide, and Larry Schaffer of Tercero wines was my willing accomplice. At one point we had six different varietals of his opened in my kitchen—and that was limiting ourselves to whites. (We had to focus somehow.) The goal was to find the perfect spot on the sweet-to-savory continuum while still keeping the wine front-and-center. It would have been easy to just let the wine function as a very complex dry vermouth, but we hoped for something more than that.

We left scotch behind quickly—neither sweet nor complex enough—and while we dallied with gin and several of Schaffer’s whites (the Verbiage Blanc blend and the Outlier, which is Gewürztraminer) we didn’t find what we were looking for. This was hard work!

Then we settled on Grenache Blanc, specifically his latest release, a 2014—yep, it was aged 15 months prior to bottling, the longest stretch for any Tercero white ever. That means incredible depth and it helps accentuate the trick the best Grenache Blanc can play: It’s a crisp, clean acidic wine first and foremost, but somehow it also manages a bit of creaminess, too. Think of it as wine muscle, not fat, perhaps. (Schaffer thinks that contrast comes from the grapes being sourced from two different vineyards, Camp 4 and El Camino Real.) With its Meyer lemon edging to Valencia orange citrus character, plus hints of green apple and mineral, it creates a fun base to begin.

Wanting to run with the citrus, and open those flavors even wider, we opted to mix with Ascendant’s American Star Caviar Lime Vodka. Distilled in wine country (Buellton), this spirit is infused with locally grown caviar limes, those pointy little guys that pop. Sure enough, when mixed with the Grenache Blanc, the citrus and herbaceous qualities in both magnified. It’s also a very smooth drink, achieving a Martini-esque sophistication without gin or vermouth.

It did, definitely, need a bit of sweet at this point, though. Sometimes that can come from the right citrus choice (Meyer lemon adds a surprising dash of sugar, say), but adding actual citrus into the wine never seemed to work in any of the test cocktails. We want wines to remind us of citrus, not be citric. So to push the sweet and herb character, we opted for a rosemarylemon simple syrup, just a half ounce per drink. But again, just the smell of this concoction is heavenly, as everyone in your house will learn when you whip up a batch. As with cooking, think about how you can keep layering flavor, and not just add sugar, but lemon and rosemary too. Such nuance matters.

The drink also calls for a bit of flaming flair with the presentation, and you might need to practice this move before you do it for discerning guests. Slice off some very fresh orange peel, and if you get a bit of pith that’s OK; this trick is easier with a thicker piece of skin. While it’s sort of instinctual to try to squeeze it from long end to long end, instead, hold the peel by its narrow sides. Light a flame between the peel and the drink’s surface, and squeeze. The oil in the peel will spark through your flame to the cocktail. Cocktail fireworks! Do note that while matches might seem classier, that assumption crumbles as soon as you light one and everyone remembers that in this post-cigarette-smoking world when we smell matches, we think of bathrooms.

And does the flamed citrus, which you do drop into the drink, add a different flavor? It’s subtle, for sure—it’s not like you’ve smoked the cocktail. But some claim it mellows the twist, a bit, so there’s that.

Finally, while this drink certainly might work with other Grenache Blancs, Tercero has another advantage for becoming your bar’s go-to wine mixer. All of Schaffer’s wines come screwtop, and that makes them easy to keep fresh and refrigerate, if you somehow ever have bottles you’ve failed to empty.