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Jul 29, 2023

As the temperatures start to cool, thoughts turn to the burly red wines that go so well with hearty fall dishes

As the temperatures start to cool and we return to our winter diets, I can’t help but think of the burly red wines I left behind in March. Labor Day in the Berkshires, I have remembered over the last

As the temperatures start to cool and we return to our winter diets, I can’t help but think of the burly red wines I left behind in March.

Labor Day in the Berkshires, I have remembered over the last few years after 20 years spent living on the West Coast, is a seasonal signpost for food and wine as much as it is for the weather.

In California, the beginning of September is often the beginning of warm stretches; especially in the southern part of the state they carry on, unchanged, for most of the year. Local summer fruits and vegetables, which begin to appear in June, can persist past Halloween. In the Northeast, of course, Labor Day marks the beginning of the end of tomatoes, stone fruit and market shelves overflowing with beans and greens.

I have sometimes heard people scoff at the idea that there is a seasonality of wine drinking, the same way the seasons and their fruits and vegetables determine what we eat over the course of the year. Some say that they are just as likely to open a leathery bottle of syrah in July as they are in January and February. In places with warm climates like California or Mexico, where the weather doesn’t change much, this seems totally understandable. On a trip I made to the Yucatan Peninsula last winter, it was so hot that even a cool glass of Chablis wasn’t on my mind, so much as an icy-cold beer.

At the Prairie Whale, in Great Barrington, on a warm night last month, a friend and I ordered a bottle of Beaujolais — 2021 Jean-Paul Brun “L’Ancien” — to go with our cheeseburgers. Beaujolais, and the grape used to produce it, which is called gamay noir, is sometimes regarded as the “chillable red wine,” on account of its dearth of tannins and easy-going, fruit-forward nature. The intrepid team at the Whale, never known for being shy, went a step further than a gentle chill and pulled the bottle straight from the refrigerator. What a pleasure it was, on that steamy evening, to be sitting at the bar with my friend at the end of a hot day, sipping on that delicious bottle as it came up to temperature.

My favorite dish of summer is fish on succotash, and when I make it, I think of it as my best opportunity to open a great bottle of white wine. For a dinner party last week, I roasted halibut and served it over a sauté of fresh corn, romano beans, poblano peppers, tarragon and chives, Meyer lemon juice and butter. I managed to sneak a handful of halved sungold tomatoes and some avocado into the pan just before I spooned the succotash onto the platter. Between the delicate flavors of the fish, and the herbs and sweet flavors of the vegetables, a bottle of white Burgundy can shine so brightly that you’ll still be thinking about it when the snow arrives.

As the temperatures start to cool and we return to our winter diets, I can’t help but think of the burly red wines I left behind in March. Cabernet sauvignon, from Napa or Bordeaux, isn’t much on my mind in tomato season, but it rushes to the front of the class when I think of making a cassoulet for the first time after the weather turns. Just thinking about duck confit on a bed of warm and brothy beans, under a sprinkling of herby breadcrumbs, is enough to make me wonder which bottles of cabernet in my basement might meet their ends in the next few months. For favorite bottles of aging red Burgundy, an old friend once advised, nothing is better than a simple roasted chicken with onions and potatoes, and a little mustard.

For me, the red wine most neglected in the summer months, to be gloriously rediscovered as fall and winter approach, is the great Italian grape nebbiolo, which is the driver of wine from famous appellations like Barolo, Barbaresco, Gattinara and Carema. Especially when young, nebbiolo can be so tannic that it is about the last thing I would want to drink with a platter of fresh tomatoes. But with a mushroom and butternut squash ragout simmering on the stove, full of roasted garlic and infused with thyme and a dusting of spice and shimmering pappardelle noodles about to come out of the pot, those great bottles of rustic red wine start rattling on the shelves, eager for the curtain to rise on the next season.

Matt Straus is the owner of Heirloom Café, a San Francisco restaurant, and recently bought the former Williamsville Inn in West Stockbridge. He has worked at renowned restaurants in Boston and Los Angeles. He was named one of the top sommeliers of 2011 by Food and Wine Magazine.