EMAIL: The Best Summer Red of All Time?

Bainbridge's Surprising Summer Red

Dear Friends:

If you're anything like me, you're always looking for a fabulous summer drink to share with friends on the hottest day of the year. No need to reach for a cold beer: Bainbridge and Cathcart are looking out for the year-round-red drinkers with their chillable "Cuvée Rouge aux Lèvres."

Against the backdrop of the Loire's castles and rolling hills, Julie and Toby are busy wrapping their tanks in Grandma's wool blankets to help fermentation along. Toby, a British ex-pat, and Julie, whom he met on an Oklahoma farm, live just kilometers away from the barn where they make their wine. For them, winemaking is about producing natural wines as clean as they are delicious.

Cuvée Rouge aux Lèvres means "Lipstick" in French, a not-so-subtle nod to the sexiness of this wine. It's alluringly juicy and charmingly fresh – a vinous kiss of blueberry, violets, and plum. But with its tangy herbal finish, Bainbridge and Cathcart achieve a buoyant thirst-quencher that never cloys.

The wines are made from biodynamically farmed, old-vines Grolleau. The grapes are fermented in resin tanks with wild yeast, but not before whole bunches go through 3 weeks of semi-carbonic maceration. Toby prefers to use a two-lid system that traps in the naturally occurring CO2 and creates the refreshing spritziness that sweeps you in for the next sip...and the next...and several more after that.

This is your all-summer red! Drink it chilled (or even cold) on rooftops, picnics, sharing with friends, or keeping all to yourself!

Cheers,

Maggie Scudder