My absolute favorite “roof wine” is Portuguese Vinho Verde. In Europe it has no cachet whatsoever and is all but unknown in the US. Basically it is a very, very light white made from grapes that are picked way too early by most standards. This yields a wine that is very tart, lemony, green-tinged (hence the name, green wine, in Portuguese), almost – but not quite –sparkling, and very low in alcohol (5% as opposed to 12-14% for most other wines). For those who are interested in this sort of stuff, Vinho Verde is a Portuguese DOC (equivalent to a French AOC). The main grape is something called albarinho, grown on pergolas, and harvested prematurely. The wine is typically put up in blue bottles to make it look really green. Most of the trendier wine stores in New York stock it at about Ŭ/bottle which is all it’s really worth. The fun part is drinking it ice cold in the hot sun. The low alcohol content, tartness, and quasi-fizz gives you the impression you are drinking something close to soda pop. You can easily drink a whole bottle and think you are feeling nothing. Until you stand up…
