Wine of the Week: SummerFall is, somehow, a perfect tailgating sake
Welcome back to FTW’s Beverage of the Week series. Here, we mostly chronicle and review beers, but happily expand that scope to any beverage (or food) that pairs well with sports. Yes, even cookie dough whiskey.
SummerFall is not subtle about what it wants to be. "Take this outside and drink it there" is printed right on the box. "Our sake tastes better outside" is right above the logo on the can. Even the name of this canned wine suggests sipping under a warm blue sky.
This is all fairly new to me. My sake experience is confined to, uh, whatever was low budget enough for sake bombs at a local Nashville Japanese restaurant in grad school. Wine in general is not my jam, and if I'm gonna be out in the sun -- at a tailgate, by a beach, etc -- my first instinct is now and will forever be to grab a beer.
But I'd like to think I'm open minded. Let's see if a carbonated sake can scratch an itch that beer currently handles like a low-wattage belt sander.
SummerFall Sake: A
Under the guidance of the can, I'm drinking this on a warm summer day. In the parking lot of the former Miller Park.
Cracking the can unleashes the unmistakable scent of white wine. Dig deep and you get some fructose flavors, but to my untrained nose... Yeah, I can't tell if that's sake or chardonnay.
The first sip sets it apart. It's flavorful and, notably, sweet. The lingering low key simmer of white wine isn't there. And while that means you won't get a dry finish, it's a pleasant aftertaste you won't mind.
The fruit here is apparent. Even though there's no grape involved here, I still feel like I'm getting a bit of that -- maybe it's just a mental association with wine. I get cherry and a little orange as well. The can says pear and, yeah, I can see that too.
I'm drinking at a Brewers tailgate and it's perfect for that. A handy way to deliver some easy to drink booze before venturing toward $18 beers. I'm not a sake guy, but I like this.
"It's just a really nice, clean, easy sake," my wife notes. "Not too sweet." So, there you go. Even someone who likes sake likes SummerFall.
Would I drink it instead of a Hamm's?
This is a pass/fail mechanism where I compare whatever I’m drinking to my baseline cheap beer. That’s the standby from the land of sky-blue waters, Hamm’s. So the question to answer is: on a typical day, would I drink SummerFall over a cold can of Hamm’s?
Yeah. I can't believe I'm picking any wine over Hamm's, but I would. This was incredibly flavorful, sweet and easy to drink without any of the slightly sour aspects of a typical white wine.
This article originally appeared on For The Win: Wine of the Week: SummerFall is, somehow, a perfect tailgating sake
