It’s Hot: Ponga Sauvignon Blanc and Cline Zinfandel
In an April move that is so typically Baltimore, Spring hung around for about five days this year before giving way to the muggy air and hot temperatures of Summer. Nobody is talking about this, though, because if you bring it up you get a look like “What, you want four more feet of snow?” Snow has attained an infamy akin to downtown traffic, gentrification, high property taxes, and Cito Gaston.
So, given the heat and the sunny skies and the frolicking through the flowers, it is the time of year when the wine blogs blossom with a bouquet of “Summer Sippers” posts. The people demand a socially-acceptable refreshing alcoholic beverage to drink outside that doesn’t make them look like they just crashed a Frat Party®.
If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em, so here’s my post.
One of my favorite reasons to eat at the The Wine Market is the ability to just pull something off of their retail shelves and just drink it with dinner. It’s like they have a wine list, then they have A BIG HUGE wine list. Sitting outside and shoveling Puffs at The Daughter to keep her quiet for the benefit of the other diners, the adults at the table needed something cold to have with dinner.
Inside the retail store, the associate enthusiastically recommended the 2009 Ponga Sauvignon Blanc retailing for $10.99 (making it $19.99 with corkage [cappage?]). I bought his pitch and took the wine for dinner. I noticed the manager gave the staffer a grin as I walked out. Had I just been taken for a ride? Were they dumping their stock of plonk onto unsuspecting sheep looking for “anything cold, dude?” I thought about channeling my inner Hunter S. Thompson. Right there in the retail store he’d pop the cap off and drink it down, declare it trash, smash the bottle on an oak barrel, and mutter something about how Nixon ruined the wine industry.
I’m just a Wine Blogger, though. I just walked out.
Turns out that the wine was fantastic. We’re talking young New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc coming out of an ice bucket when it is eighty degrees outside. Good times all around. Great citrus fruit and not a lot of grassy-this and grassy-that but just a little something. Went down so well that we grabbed another bottle to-go. Because, that’s how we roll. Thumbs up on the Ponga.
Fun fact: Ponga is a tree fern found in New Zealand. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silver_Tree_Fern
I once heard an anecdote that Robert Mondavi, King Emeritus of the California Wine Industry, sometimes put ice in his Cabernet during the boiling Napa Valley summer days. On one such occasion he was asked what he was doing with ice in his wine and he simply replied “It’s hot.” It follows then that if Mondavi can get on with some reds in the summer, surely we can too, right?
Enter 2008 Cline California Zinfandel. I love Zinfandel. Really love it. The Wife does too. Without fail, when I pour a Zin, she takes a drink and says “I like this.” (This is high praise from The Wife. We’re talking 95 from Parker.) For some reason, though, I don’t buy enough of it. I don’t know why. Maybe I’m turned off by the labels or the marketing or how everything is “Old vine” this and “Old vine” that. Last time I was in Calvert Liquors I saw a Cline Zinfandel labeled with “Ancient vines.” What’s next? Prehistoric Vines?
Anyway I’m getting away from the wine which was fantastic. My point is that I stuck it in the fridge for two hours before we drank it. We Americans typically drink our reds too hot anyway and in the summer we may as well be drinking red gasoline. The Cline Zinfandel was deep. Cherry, leathery aromas. Meduim ruby color but felt heavier on the palette. Licorice and Chocolate flavors. A nicely balance coating finish. Really, this would have stood up just fine against some of the $50 Bordeaux wines I’ve had recently.
After a particularly bad string of wines recently, it was nice to hit on two in a row last week. Ponga’s Sauv Blanc for $10.99 and Cline’s Zin for $12 are serious wines for not-so-serious summer dranking. I suggest the addition some sunshine, burgers, friends, some Melody Gardot tunes, and my roof deck.
April 7th, 2010 at 10:18 am
I think I like that Cline better than their ancient vines version. I think for ancient vines they simply add tar.
April 7th, 2010 at 10:40 am
I also chill reds in the summer given that my house is nowhere near cellar temperature. Once I take it outside, however, it will warm up – often fast. To avoid diluting your wine with ice cubes, try some of those re-freezable ice cubes (sometimes in a cube shape – other times shaped like fish or starts or flamingos). They’ll help you keep your wine in the drinkable zone without interfering with the flavors.
April 7th, 2010 at 6:05 pm
@Strongbad: It’s *ancient* tar
@VA Wine Diva: Good idea. I keep the reds in an ice bucket too sometimes when hanging outside.
May 21st, 2010 at 5:04 pm
Love the Ponga Sauvignon Blanc! I think it’s going to be my drink of Summer 2010
August 22nd, 2010 at 5:02 pm
Where can you find this wine in Maryland?
August 26th, 2010 at 3:09 pm
The Wine Market carries it. They’re in Federal Hill, Baltimore.