During long, cold winter nights while cocooning under layers of fleece and goose down, it is only natural fantasize about hot summer days, thirst-quenching beverages to cool the sun’s intensity and getting out of the man cave and into swim trunks. When it comes to summer refreshment, if your idea of perfection stops at a beer after the lawn is mowed, consider these wine possibilities to broaden your liquid horizons.

Bathing Suit Weight

Ever try to shed a few pounds for a beach vacation? Better to toss the Speedo and slip into roomy shorts. The point here is that when seeking wines that work well in hot weather, it is the weight that matters most. What exactly does that mean? In a nutshell, the weight of a wine is the way it feels in the mouth. Some wine geeks call this texture. What gets confusing is texture gets all jumbled together with other sensations that are experienced simultaneously as we sip. Acidity, alcohol levels, use of oak and other winemaking choices all add up to something that either feels full, rich and heavy when swallowed, or light, crisp and refreshing. What you want for summer is a wine that would look good in flip-flops and a flowered shirt, not a power suit.

Lighten Up

The old adage is “Drink whites on hot summer nights.” Well yeah, sort of.

If that white is a buttery chardonnay, aged in new oak and has a year or two of bottle age, step away from the corkscrew and leave this voluptuous beauty for next fall or winter. The weight of a big Chard begs for rich foods such as cream-based sauces or a wild-mushroom pâté. Lighter summer fare, especially grilled meats and vegetables, will taste better with an inexpensive, lightly-oaked chardonnay from a recent vintage, such as the 2008 Waterbrook Chardonnay from Washington’s Columbia Valley. At under $15 per bottle, it’s a wine that fits the budget and makes Aunt Mabel’s potato salad quite palatable, even if Aunt Mabel is not.

Whites to Beat the Heat

When temperatures reach the scorching level and firing up the pots and pans sounds like torture, forget about Chardonnay and cool off with Argentine Torrontes and Sauvignon Blanc from the Marlborough region of New Zealand. These two types of wine are superb quaffers, but also work well with plenty of hot weather foods such as leafy green salads, grilled shellfish, or let’s eat Chinese take-out because it’s just too dang hot to cook.

Two hands-down winners that offer consistent value and predictable flavor profiles from year to year are Crios Torrontes and Kim Crawford Sauvignon Blanc. These are readily available, usually in the $10-$13 range, and can be served as an aperitif or with food. Chill them yes, but please do not stick them in an ice bucket. All good white wines lose flavors and aromas when they are too cold.

Ice Bucket Whites

There is always an exception to the rule. An ice bucket is precisely what you want for serving sparkling wines in the great outdoors. For a special warm weather treat, chill a bottle of non-vintage Scharffenberger Brut in the fridge early in the day. Share this with your sweetie on a languid summer afternoon, along with a bit of Boursin cheese, and the world will be a more beautiful place. At right around the $20 mark, it is a killer upgrade from inexpensive sparklers like Italian Prosecco or Spanish Cava, with a clean, crisp elegance that makes this California bubbly seem decadent. Save that weighty French Champagne for cooler weather.

Do Real Men Drink Rosé?

Yes, they do. And so do real women. The problem is sorting the good stuff from the swill. Pink wines run the gamut from a step above Kool-aid to bone dry, refined and elegant. In recent years rosés have become fashionable again, compelling many producers to offer an obligatory pink thing in their portfolio. Buyers beware.

Reds and More

Now that finding wines by weight makes sense, just apply the same principles to red wines as whites. High octane Syrah and port-like Zinfandel will still be your friends come autumn. Serve these monsters at a summer picnic and your guests will be looking around for water. Reds, and red blends that are a bit lower in alcohol, spend less time aging in oak barrels, and have prominent fruit flavors tend to taste better when it is hot. Serve summer reds at 55-65 degrees, even if that means a quick cool-down in the fridge.

Toss a flank steak or Italian sausages and onions on the grill. These are ideal with Rhône Valley red blends made from grapes that include Syrah, Grenache, Mourvedre, Cariganan and other. Good, affordable versions from France for everyday drinking are called Côtes du Rhône. Look for producers like Guigal. In Australia these Rhône blends are often given alphabet abbreviations based on the grapes present in the blend. Look for GSM, with Grenache as the primary grape, for a wine that is typically fruity and not very tannic. For an American riff on these wines, try red blends from Paso Robles that often include Zinfandel in the mix. Producers like Linne Calodo, Booker, Denner and Villa Creek are pricy at $30 and up, but sharing a wine like Linne Calodo’s “Stix and Stones” will make your summer dinner party a memorable occasion.

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