Boutari
2004 Santorini, about $16
(Imported by Paterno Wines International, Lake Bluff, Ill.)
Too hot for you? If you can’t get out of town, find a bottle of Boutari’s Santorini, a white wine from the Greek isle of the same name, and chill it down well.
Chill a glass too. Slice up some tomatoes – the August kind, dripping sweet with juice. Douse them liberally with olive oil, and sprinkle with salt. Then pop the cork out of the cold bottle and splash some of the wine into the cold glass.
Eat the tomatoes, scooping them up with chunks of bread torn from a crusty loaf, and sip the wine. Feel the bracing acidity of the wine: It’s like the sea breeze that cools the grapes as they ripen on their Aegean island.
Taste the cool, mineral flavors, as refreshing as a dip in the deep blue water. Repeat as needed, until the heat wave breaks.
-Tara Q. Thomas
