Bottle Rocket: Grieve Family Sauvignon Blanc

While covering the Pebble Beach Wine and Food Festival last month for a story in Modern Luxury Magazine, I tasted a wine that still lingers in my thoughts: the 2009 Sauvignon Blanc from Grieve Family Winery. So when the temperature in Dallas crept eerily close to the century mark last week, I popped the cork on a bottle and watched the sun drop off the edge of the world.

A blend of early and late harvests from California’s Lovall Valley, so the wine tastes both tropical (pineapple, peach, melon) and cool-climate (grapefruit, green grass) without hiding its minerality. This isn’t a sweet wine. In fact, it’s bone dry, and loaded with that big, bright acidity that makes your mouth water, which is precisely what you want on a warm Texas night.

Right now,  you have to buy it from the winery ($40 a bottle). Or travel to Tony’s Restaurant, in Houston.