John Szabo’s Buyers Guide to Vintages June 6th Release

Chill Your Reds. All of Them.

By John Szabo MS, with notes from David Lawrason, Mega Jandhyala and Michael Godel

The Vintages release for June 6 leans into a theme that’s been flowing in the underbelly of the wine world for the better part of a decade: chillable reds. Also known as: crushable, glou-glou, sluggable — pick your descriptor. The LCBO has finally caught up to what a small but vocal contingent of sommeliers, importers, and natural-wine evangelists have been preaching since at least the early 2010s: red wines are better chilled, especially the fruit-forward, low-tannin wines. As the summer heats up, it’s time to grab an ice bucket, or make space in the refrigerator, for those lighter style reds alongside your whites and roses. The WineAlign Crü selects the best from the release, along with some more “serious” reds. But these, too, should see the ice bucket, as I explain. The other winning category — and appropriately seasonal — is rose. We’ve got a pair of multi-aligned pinks — a quadruple and a treble — from the less-travelled roads of northern Greece and Uruguay. Read on!

Chill Your Reds. All of Them

Anecdotally, I find that most of my friends and colleagues in the wine business gravitate towards white wines when they’re off the clock — wines that are lighter, fresher, lower in alcohol and higher in drinkability. No doubt this is connected to the trade’s generous consumption patterns, in which not every glass need bear monumental gravitas. I suppose if I were a one-glass-on-a-Saturday-night type of consumer, I’d be looking for more impact. But frequent wine drinkers are just as often seeking refreshment with simple, fruity (delicious) flavours. It’s recorded in Medieval monastic records that daily wine rations were close to one liter per monk each day, with the discretion to increase the allowance to compensate for hard labor or summer heat. Back then, of course, average alcohol levels were much lower than they are today — no 16% Amarone or 15% Côtes du Rhône. Probably closer to 7% to 9%. Wine was daily sustenance, for calories and hydration.

Now, I’m not suggesting that folks in the wine trade drink like monks, but we do enjoy wine for its simple pleasures as much as for the mind-bending complexity and longevity that some bottles possess. These latter are the Saturday night wines.

Over the past decade or so, red wines — the kind best served with a chill — have re-entered the daily roster of options alongside whites and roses while, at the same time, the trend for big, powerful, oaky, high-octane reds has waned. This trend’s lineage is reasonably traceable. Famous American importer Kermit Lynch was banging the drum for serving reds at a cooler temperature in his 1988 memoir, Adventures on the Wine Route, in prescient anticipation of the 1990s and 2000s when bigger was always better.

Writer Jon Bonné’s 2013 book The New California Wine helped reframe what a serious red could look like: lighter, fresher, less ambitious about extraction. Alice Feiring kept the natural-wine torch lit, and over in Beaujolais, the so-called Gang of Four — Marcel Lapierre, Jean Foillard, Guy Breton, and Jean-Paul Thévenet, mentored by the eminently quotable Jules Chauvet — quietly rebuilt a market for gamay served cold. The wines were also low in sulphur, and proud of it. A generation of producers from Alto Adige to New Zealand followed.

Chill your reds. All of them.

Hear me out. It’s not just the light reds that should be served chilled. The accepted upper limit for serving red wine is around 18°C and, unless you keep your home colder than most Canadians do in February, “room temperature” is generally several degrees too warm. Above 18°C, alcohol becomes more prominent, fruit recedes, and the whole package starts to feel hot and tiring on the palate. Less refreshing. Less drinkable. More chore than pleasure.

The other end of the spectrum has its own pitfalls. If served too cold, a wine’s aromatic complexity collapses — volatile compounds simply don’t volatilize as readily. So the more layered the wine, the warmer it should be served, up to but never exceeding that 18°C ceiling. A fine Barolo at 6°C is a waste of money.

Then there’s tannin. Cool temperatures amplify the perception of astringency, which is precisely why white wines — innocent of tannin — can be served properly cold without consequence. Tannic reds served too cold turn grippy and angular. Low-tannin reds, on the other hand, are built for the chill. Somewhere between 10°C and 16°C, depending on weight and personal taste, is the sweet spot. I find the fruit reads fresher, the acidity tingles, and drinkability goes through the roof when softer reds are served cool.

The grapes and regions that lend themselves to this treatment are exactly the ones that you’ve likely encountered in cool wine bars and bottle shops already, and now increasingly on LCBO shelves. Gamay leads the pack — Beaujolais, naturally, but also increasingly impressive examples from Niagara and Prince Edward County. Lighter-styled pinot noir. Schiava from Alto Adige. Frappato from Sicily. Trousseau and poulsard from the Jura. Cinsault from the Languedoc or South Africa or Chile. Mencía from Bierzo and Ribeira Sacra. Zweigelt and lighter blaufränkisch from Austria and Hungary. Cabernet Franc from the Loire and Ontario. Bardolino and basic Valpolicella from the Veneto. Even grenache/garnacha, if the mood strikes. None of them need much coaxing to taste good below 16°C.

Now, the practical question: How do you actually get a bottle from 22°C — call that your dining room on a summer evening — down to a serviceable 12°C?

In a standard refrigerator, you’re looking at roughly 90 minutes to two hours. The fridge moves heat slowly because air is a lousy conductor. An ice bucket filled with water and ice, however, is far more efficient — water transfers heat about 25 times more effectively than air — and will get you there in 15 to 20 minutes. Skip the ice-only bucket; without water surrounding the whole bottle, you lose most of the advantage. In a real hurry, add a couple of tablespoons of salt to the slurry and you’ll shave another five minutes off.

And if you’ve already opened a bottle that’s drinking like stewed prune juice at 21°C? Here’s the dirty little secret of the trade: Drop a single large ice cube into your glass, stir for 10 to 15 seconds, fish it out. The wine cools fast enough to fix the temperature with negligible dilution. I’ve watched plenty of credentialed sommeliers do this. I’ve done it myself more times than I’ll commit to print. Just don’t do it with anything that cost you more than $25 or so.

And with that, on to the Buyer’s Guide. The June 6 release has no shortage of candidates for the chill treatment. Pour cool, drink well.

Buyer’s Guide Vintages June 6: Chillable Reds

Luis Marin Old Vine Amethyst Edition Garnacha 2023, Spain
$16.95, Alcor International
John Szabo — Lots of fun and pleasure here in this 100% garnacha, with loads of character and integrity for the money. Fruit is sweet and mostly red, with the welcome nuances of spice, frankincense and leather. Tannins are typically moderate, making for pleasant current drinking with a light chill.

Bisquertt Crazy Rows Cinsault 2024, Itata Valley, Chile
$16.95, Woodman Wines & Spirits
John Szabo — A collaboration with growers with old cinsault vines under the “Crazy Rows” range from Bisquertt, this bottling from the Itata Valley (Secano Interior) fulfills the definition of a chillable red to a T with its juicy, fruity nature, soft texture, and chuggable quality. Chill, crack, go.

Artuke Rioja 2024, Rioja, Spain
$19.95, All The Right Grapes
John Szabo — This is Arturo and wife Kike’s homage to the cosechero (harvester) wines of days gone by. These were young, fruity, carbonic maceration wines made in the villages of Rioja by local winegrowers and sold in bulk. They often mixed red and white grapes, as Artuke does here with 5% viura mixed with 95% tempranillo, raised entirely in concrete. The result is a rightly chillable red, fruity, soft, juicy and easy, though with sneaky depth and underlying complexity.
Michael Godel — A creative and forward-thinking Rioja producer. Wood is undetectable, if there at all. Hard to do better at this price for authentic Rioja with propriety and soul.

Westcott Estate Pinot Noir 2023, Ontario, Canada
$33.95, Westcott Vineyards
Michael Godel — Top-ranking acidity, little to no wood preponderance, and classic stylistic beauty. Bravo, Team Westcott. Estate pinot noir will age dutifully for a few years yet.
David Lawrason — This sports a lovely, evocative cedary, spicy nose around the classic sour cherry pinot fruit. It is light-to-medium bodied, nicely integrated and smooth with fine grained but drying tannin that suggest a couple more years in bottle would be wise. Wanted a bit more length but there is a good sense of sophistication here, and decent value.

Buyer’s Guide Vintages June 6: Rose

Kir Yianni Xinomavro Rosé 2025, Macedonia, Greece
$19.95, The Kolonaki Group Inc.
John Szabo — One hundred percent Xinomavro off the poor, sandy soils of Agios Panteleimon in the high Amyndeon PDO, up around 600 to 700 metres, this wine pours a very pale, platinum-pinkish colour typical of this low-pigment grape, and delivers an appealingly flinty-stony, citrus-zest-inflected profile. Sapid and well-balanced, energetic.
Michael Godel — Notably salty rose. Light, savoury, quite dry, of a most satisfying and quenching style.
Megha Jandhyala — This bright and invigorating rose has so much character, brimming with tangy summer berries and peaches, alongside savoury notes. I especially like the refreshing hint of bitterness that lingers on the finish.
David Lawrason — This is very pale, with a bright piquant but not dramatic nose of cherry pit, ground cherry, dried herbs and wet stone. It is dry, almost crisp and stony, with pleasant grapefruit bitterness. Quite bracing, should work well with Mediterranean summer salads.

Garzón Pinot Rosé De Corte 2025, Uruguay, World
$19.95, Mark Anthony Wines & Spirits
John Szabo — Drawn from Bodega Garzón’s vast patchwork of more than 1,000 small hillside blocks in Maldonado, roughly 18 kilometres off the Atlantic, this is all freshness and clarity, with cherries and red currants, genuine depth and concentration, and impressive length in the price category.
Megha Jandhyala — Youthful charm abounds in this crunchy rose from Uruguay. Made up of equal parts tart red berries, citrus fruit and fresh herbs, it should pair well with fresh seafood, including a bowl of poke.
David Lawrason — This is a quite rich and powerful pinot noir rose with an almost creamy texture and considerable heat that I would expect from Uruguay. Yet, with lively acidity and CO2 freshness at the same time. Aromas and flavours of grapefruit, ground cherry and fresh herbs are quite intense. Chill well; needs food.

Buyer’s Guide Vintages June 6: White

San Felice Vermentino 2024, Tuscany, Italy
$18.95, Connexion Oenophilia
Michael Godel — The current white wine darling of Tuscany is vermentino, with new plantings going in from Montecucco, to Chianti Classico, to Costa Toscana. More than refreshing, this is proper vermentino with an extra layer of stuffing.

Tornatore Etna Bianco 2024, Sicily, Italy
$24.95, Nicholas Pearce Wines Inc.
Megha Jandhyala — Fleshy yet firm, stony and botanical, with delicate notes of orchard and citrus fruit, this is an approachable and appropriate introduction to Etna bianco.
David Lawrason — This is from the exotic carricante grape, fermented and aged in concrete. The nose is very intense with botanicals, lemon/orange marmalade and spice. It is fullish, dry and energized with a bitter, sappy evergreen, almost retsina-like finish. Excellent length. Will spark conversation while slaking thirst.

Buyer’s Guide Vintages June 6: Other Reds

Wapisa Cabernet Sauvignon 2023, Patagonia, Argentina
$21.95, DB Wine & Spirits
David Lawrason — From a promising new region on the Atlantic coast, this is well made and focused, with classic cabernet blackcurrant jam, tobacco, subtle fresh mint/arugula and well meted barrel spice. It is medium-full bodied with fresh acidity, modest alcohol and fairly grippy, drying tannin. Aerate if drinking now; will age into early 2030s.

Little Giant Pinot Noir 2025, South Australia
$21.95, Colio Estate Wines
David Lawrason — Here’s a quite smooth and engaging pinot to enjoy with a light chill this summer. Raspberry/cherry compote, wood spice and forest floor typicity. It open knit, warm and easy, thankfully without sweetness being apparent.

Librandi Duca Sanfelice Cirò Riserva Rosso 2022, Calabria, Italy
$23.95, Noble Estates Wines & Spirits Inc.
John Szabo — Properly firm and savoury, this is a southern Italian red from the historic zone of Cirò made of pure gaglioppo off old head-trained bush vines in Librandi’s eponymous Duca Sanfelice vineyard, a commercial leader in the appellation. Offers a widely appealing mix of red fruits and earthy, herbal character.
David Lawrason — One might expect a ripe, richer softer Puglian primitivo style from hot Calabria on the toe of Italy, but this is a mountain wine delivering a paler colour and quite vibrant red fruit. The grape is gaglioppo, grown on old bush vines in calcareous clay soils. The nose is sour red cherry, tomato and fresh sage and minerality. There is no wood employed. It is firm and quite tannic.

Glenelly Estate Reserve Red Blend 2018, Stellenbosch, South Africa
$26.95, Profile Wine Group (Vin Vino)
John Szabo — A classy, mature red with a Bordeaux-inspired profile — fitting, given the estate’s connection to Pichon-Longueville (same owner). I love the gravelly black fruit, the cigar box and leathery spice, the savoury herbal flavours — all building off a hand-picked, naturally fermented base. Tannins at this stage are nicely polished, though still providing necessary structure.
Michael Godel — Cabernet sauvignon is half the fun, Bordeaux varieties make up 86 percent of the total blend, and syrah is the outlier. Sweetly earthy geological funk and classic Cape style. There is just so much wine in this bottle.

La Massa 2021, Tuscany, Italy
$35.95, Terra Firma Brands
Michael Godel — The ’21 is fuller, woodier and deeper, yet still maintains its impossible and deregulated appellative integrity. To be honest, it feels, tastes and is expressed like Chianti Classico Riserva, ready to flow, yet can only improve with a few years further age.
Megha Jandhyala — This sangiovese-led Tuscan red blend is delightfully lush, fully supported by firm acidity and tannins. Its flavour profile is a bounty of ripe red fruit and violets, joined by dried herbs and toasted brown spices.

Oreno 2022, Tuscany, Italy
$99.95, Noble Estates Wines & Spirits Inc.
Megha Jandhyala — Though its price may seem extravagant, the 2022 Oreno (now entering its peak drinking window) is worth the splurge. It balances generosity with restraint masterfully, displaying remarkable concentration and complexity.

That’s all for this report, see you ’round the next bottle of chillable red.

John Szabo, MS

Use these quick links for access to all of our June 6th Top Picks in the New Release. Non-premium members can select from all release dates 60 days prior.

John’s Top Picks – June 6th
Lawrason’s Take – June 6th
Megha’s Picks – June 6th
Michael’s Mix – June 6th

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