White Wine in WInter

Winter time can really limit your wine options. The cold weather encourages us to make hearty, warming dishes, and we look for wines to handle those big flavors. Fresh vegetables are long forgotten, and we hope our stockpile of root vegetables--augmented with the occasional imported tidbit from the grocery store--helps us make it through the dark months. Focusing on the handful of ingredients that last well through the winter allows us to find a recipe that helps us break from the red wine rut.

Broccoli is one of the few vegetables worth picking up from the grocery during winter. It's versatile and can serve as a base to a wide range of meals. You'll always taste the vegetable, but you can do a lot with seasoning and protein to add to the flavor. Fish and broccoli in a nice stew can make a great warming meal, yet avoid the gut-busting heaviness found in most other stews.

For a lighter meal like that, look for a wine that has a hint of crispness to complement the fattiness of the fish, with a vegetable note to match the broccoli. Sauvignon Blanc fits the bill in this case: crisp, herbal, grassy. These are flavors that can brighten up a cold day.