Perfect Wines For Spring & Early Summer (w/ Food Pairing Tips!)

Perfect Wines For Spring & Early Summer (w/ Food Pairing Tips!)

You can already feel the warm air caressing your cheeks, and that means spring is here, and summer is around the corner! For wine lovers, this is an great time of the year when wine is more than a drink; it’s the perfect way to stay fresh and thirst-quenched.

With so many types of wine, made in a myriad of styles and dozens of distinct grapes, it’s easy to see there’s wine for every occasion and time of the year. With this in mind, here are the perfect wines for spring and early summer!

1. Rosé, Always in Vogue

Rosé is the quintessential summer wine; it’s just what you want to drink poolside or with your feet buried in the warm sand. It’s just so refreshing, mouthwatering, and chick! What’s not to love? Try dry rose for the best experience, and it doesn’t matter where it comes from or the grapes used to make it, just go with rosé, and you can’t go wrong.

Food pairings: grilled sausages, roasted poultry, shrimp, and lobster

2. Bubbles!

Sparkling wine is lovely all-year-round, but it shines best in warm evenings. Fizzy wine has a high acidity, which is quite refreshing, and it’s also better enjoyed ice cold — just what you want on warm summer days. You need not spend much to find a nice bottle of sparkling wine, Prosecco is fantastic, and it’s pretty inexpensive!

Food pairings: Fried finger food, coconut shrimp, oysters, sushi and sashimi

3. Vermentino, An Italian Classic

Vermentino but also any other dry, crisp and refreshing white wine, including Sauvignon Blanc, Albariño and Grüner Veltliner, are fantastic spring wines. They’re made to quench your thirst. Serve these chilled and enjoy their vibrant fruitiness and enticing minerality. For this wine style, the younger, the better, and they’re often on the cheap side as well.

Food pairings: Fresh cheese, light salads, white fish, and steamed veggies

4. Riesling, Floral and Beautifully Sweet

Riesling can be sweet or bone dry, and both renditions are pretty nice under the sun. The pleasurable floral scents, the peach aromas and the high acidity make this cold-weather variety fantastic for drinking on its own — it’s versatile at the table, too! See if you can find in your glass that signature petrol aroma reminiscent of new tennis balls; it’s thrilling!

Food pairings: Asian stir-fries, sweet and sour sauces, fruit salads, mango sticky rice, and freshly chucked oysters.

5. Pinot Noir, Liquid Silk

Pinot Noir is a well-rounded grape. It’s best known for its thrilling acidity and silken palate — that’s just what you want in spring and early summer, a cherry-scented young Pinot with a vibrant personality. Enjoy this one slightly chilled on a wide wine glass.

Food pairings: Fatty fish like tuna, salmon, mackerel and sardines. Fried rice, roasted poultry and pork

6. Beaujolais, Young and Cheery

French winemakers release this seasonal specialty every November. Still, the Gamay-based wine peaks in early spring, where its uncomplicated fruitiness and lovely, sweet aromatics mirror the year’s first blossoming flowers. Often called a baby Pinot Noir, Beaujolais is also enjoyed slightly chilled, making it perfect for the warm weather.

Food pairings: Teriyaki sauce, sticky ribs, grilled meat skewers, eel, fruit tarts and fresh fruit

Wrapping It Up: Lively And Fruity, That’s The Secret Behind Spring Wines

This warm-season, celebrate wine’s fruitiness and vibrancy. Leave robust, contemplative wine styles for the harshest winter months. Summer is all about having fun and spending time with the ones you love. What better way than sharing a bottle of lively and fruity wine with the ones close to you?

Cocktails For Valentine’s Day To Make At Home

Cocktails For Valentine’s Day To Make At Home

Valentine’s Day is around the corner which means dim lights and a nice dinner with someone special. For others, this is a fantastic evening to get-together with friends and celebrate fraternal love.

Either way, there’s a need for a round of drinks, and that’s where cocktails come in. Sure, when it comes to quenching your thirst and getting in the right mood, any drink will rise to the occasion. If you want to do it right, though, you’ll want to have a few Valentine-inspired cocktail recipes up your sleeve.

Get drunk in love this year.

1. Cranberry Gin Fizz

Gin is super trendy right now, especially all those new craft gins made with exciting aromatics! Sophisticated but very pleasurable, gin is always the right choice, and it’s much better when served in a fizzy drink. The gin fizz is one of the oldest cocktails in history, and it’s still popular. It’s easy to see why; it’s delicious and easy to put together. For a Valentine’s Day rendition, we’re tainting it red with tangy cranberry juice.

Ingredients:

Gin (Bombay Gin or Hendrix)
Lemon Juice (Real or Concentrate)
Simple Syrup

Instructions:

  • Fill tall glass with ice
  • Add 2 ounces of gin, 1 ounce of lemon juice and another oz of simple syrup
  • Fill half of the glass with cranberry juice and top it with soda

2. The Pink Russian

The White Russian is a creamy, lusciously sweet vodka-based cocktail, and let’s say it out loud, creamy cocktails are underrated. How to say no to a coating, boozy drink that tastes like a milky coffee? A traditional White Russian is based on vodka, half & half (or cream) and coffee liqueur, a delicious digestive on its own. Our Valentine’s version will need a splash of grenadine to turn it into a sexy pink drink. You can also use the syrup left in a cherry jar. As for the vodka, if you can, find a berry-scented version; it’s even better.

Ingredients:

Vodka (Greygoose, Titos or Kettle One)
Coffee liqueur (Kahlua or Bailey’s)
Half & Half Milk
Grenadine (Rose’s Grenadine)

Instructions:

  • In a short glass filled with ice, add 1.5 ounces of vodka, 1 ounce of coffee liqueur, and 2 ounces of half & half, but do so gently, without disturbing the bottom layer
  • Top with a splash of grenadine, and then slowly stir to create a marbled effect

NOTE: You can substitute the coffee liqueur with white crème de cacao for a brighter pink color

3. Pomegranate Cosmo

The Cosmo is the most fashionable of martinis. Ruby red, slick, and nicely balanced between sweetness and tanginess, what’s not to love? You can revamp your Cosmo easily, and take the 90s classic to the new century by merely substituting the traditional cranberry juice for an antioxidant-rich pomegranate juice.

Ingredients:

Vodka (Greygoose, Titos or Kettle One)
Lemon Juice (Real or Concentrate)
Pomegranate Juice (Real or Concentrate)

Instructions:

  • In a shaker (or a coffee cup with a lid), add ice, 2 ounces of vodka, half-an-ounce of lemon juice, and 2 ounces of pomegranate juice
  • Shake, shake, shake and strain into a martini glass. Then throw in a few fresh pomegranate seeds for a WOW factor

4. Raspberry Kir Royale

Bubbles are just celebratory and instantly compatible with Valentine’s Day. They just feel Right. Well, it turns out you can make cocktails with sparkling wine too. For this one, we’re making a classic Kir Royale, which is quite fancy already and we’re improving it with fresh raspberries.

Ingredients:

Champagne
Creme de Cassis (DRILLAUD CREME DE CASSIS)
or Berry liqueur (DRILLAUD BLACKBERRY LIQUEUR)

Instructions:

  • In a chilled flute glass, add nine parts Champagne and one part creme de cassis or any other berry liqueur
  • Leave some room for three or four fresh raspberries and enjoy!

5. Champagne Sorbet Float

Why not have two Champagne based cocktails on our list? After all, serving Champagne with your Valentine’s dinner is already a great idea. This time, we’re keeping it simple, but the results are extraordinary. Try to find coupe champagne glasses for this one, which are wider. If you can’t find any, use white wine glasses.

Ingredients:

Champagne
All Natural Sorbet

Instructions:

  • Pour the Champagne into the glasses but leave room for a scoop of high-quality, all-natural sorbet
  • Scoop in the sorbet. You can use any fruit sorbet, but for us, the best are the ones flavored with strawberries or peach

This cocktail is so pretty it can be dessert too!

From everyone here at Radio5 Events, wishing you the sweetest, happiest Valentine’s Day, cheers!