As the richer, saucy dishes of cooler months give way to grilled fish and composed salads, many customers migrate from powerful reds to easier drinking whites. So decisions about what wines to feature during the summer have singular importance to operators.
Take George Miliotes, director of beverage and hospitality for Darden’s eight-unit Seasons 52, which already serves 70 wines by the glass made from 23 grape varietals. This summer he’ll promote four whites, all brisk, crisp quaffers suited for the torrid Southeast, where the restaurants are located. No rich New World Chardonnays, but no watery Pinot Grigios, either.
Miliotes already changes Seasons 52’s wine list twice yearly, but this summer’s introductions include the sort of wines that don’t ordinarily win awards, yet make perfect matches with summer’s lighter fare.
And the wines offer the not insignificant plus of being lower than average in alcohol, one dramatically so.
“The Vinho Verde from Portugal had a great run last summer for us,” Miliotes says. “It has a touch of sweetness and a bit of spritz, and is a perfect, easy-drinking white for summer. Our seven restaurants are in Georgia and Florida, and once June rolls around it’s hot, and wines like this are perfect when guests are sitting on the patio.”
The whites Seasons 52 will feature—a Verdejo from Spain’s La Mancha region, a Pinot Blanc from Germany’s Mosel-Saar-Rower, the Vinho Verde and a Moscato from California—are all lower in alcohol than most of today’s popular whites. The Pinot Blanc is highest at about 11 percent alcohol, significantly lower than the 14 percent to 15 percent routinely found in Chardonnays today. Vinho Verde is traditionally less than 9 percent alcohol; the other two wines are 10 percent or lower.
“I think when summertime comes and it’s hotter out and we’re eating more seafood and maybe eating and drinking outside more, guests want this option,” he says. “If we look to the future there is certainly a market in wines that have a balanced amount of alcohol in them.”
This makes business sense in two ways: giving customers choices that allow them to drink without worries about consumption, and raising by-the-glass unit sales. You don’t need a calculator to figure out that three glasses of under 10 percent Vinho Verde have less potency than two glasses of a chardonnay at 15 percent alcohol.
“With more low-alcohol options, you’re a more responsible server,” Miliotes says. “If I have a glass of Vinho Verde with a salad or appetizer, I can still have a glass of anything I want after. It may not be a trend that has arrived, but it’s on its way.”
Many wine drinkers are turning away from the “over” wines—overoaked, overproof and overwhelming. That style won’t be departing from the scene anytime soon, but unless you want customers snoozing when their bisque arrives, a hot summer night on the patio isn’t the time to feature them.
Rieslings have become a sommelier’s goto low-alcohol choice, but many Americans are still unclear about the wine’s charms. More options on wine lists would be both welcome and responsible. Miliotes says he’s been looking for better, lower-alcohol reds, and when he finds them, I bet his customers will thank him with their dollars.
“We’re a bipolar country in the way we look at wine,” Miliotes says. “We love big wines, and there’s a place for them, but we’re learning as a nation that there’s also a place and a beauty to wines that are more balanced, that exemplify the more green-apple fruit instead of ripe jammy fruit. With the amount of knowledge the average consumer has now compared to 10 years ago, they look for these wines.”
