QotD: Wine

"All wine would be red," said the late Leon Adams, "if it could." While I'm not convinced that the Domaine de la Romanée-Conti's '95 Montrachet feels socially inferior when it bumps into a bottle of Beaujolais Nouveau on the streets of Beaune, I can sympathize with Adams's sentiment. Many drinkers think of a white wine as foreplay and feel somehow unsatisfied with a meal that doesn't lead eventually to red. Which is why, though summer undoubtedly has many features to recommend it — hot weather, tiny bathing suits, long days — some of us can't help dreading it as the doldrums of the red-wine drinker's year. It's hard to think about opening that big old bottle of Beaucastel or Beychevelle when you're sweating like a . . . I was about to say pig, but in fact, as my animal-mad wife has reminded me, pigs don't sweat. Sweating like a horse, maybe. Whatever. Anyway, I'm happy to report that some read wines go well with suntan lotion.

Jay McInerney, "Summer Reds", Bacchus & Me: Adventures in the Wine Cellar, 2002