Three ways to explore wine in 2021, despite the pandemic

As we begin the new year grappling with a continued set of restrictions, here’s the upside: We can still seek out inventive adventures with wine. Here are three wine experiences to explore in 2021.

1. Take a hike with top-rated wine in a can.

The Maker, 2019 Mendocino, CA Viognier surprised the judges in last year’s North Coast Wine Challenge when it snagged a gold medal with a 96-point rating. Sarah Hoffman and Kendra Kawala, the co-founders of Maker, are two upstart millennials who are raising the bar for wine in cans. The motto on Maker’s website, makerwine.com, is “Under-the-radar wine, over-the-top stories. Small-batch wine made by unconventional people — in a can.” Even during a pandemic, we can still roam parks and beaches. So while we’re enjoying the great outdoors, do your palate a favor and slip a six-pack of Maker’s viognier in your backpack.

2. Uncork a wine you can’t pronounce.

Trockenbeerenauslese is a German wine term referring to late-harvest bottlings made from grapes affected by noble rot. Known as botrytised grapes, they appear like raisins and have sweet flavors of caramel, honey and apricot. This impressive dessert wine can take the place of traditional pie, cake and pastries. You can also splash it over a warm compote of stone fruit — nectarines, peaches, plums and apricots. Buy a bottle of Trockenbeerenauslese (trock-en-beer-en-aus-lazy) this year and give your palate a chance to taste one of the world’s most challenging wine terms to pronounce. A favorite is the highly rated Nigl 2018 Trockenbeerenauslese riesling at $56.

3. Be European and look at wine as food.

Winemakers who grew up across the pond say it was common for them to drink wine when they were kids. Wine was regarded as a food and there was usually a bottle on the table every night. If we in the United States can challenge ourselves to embrace a European sensibility about wine, we can enjoy uncorking a bottle daily. Becoming an everyday wine drinker may not seem practical, but there are plenty of budget wines at $20 and less on the market to make it a reality. Some highly rated value wines include Pedroncelli, Layer Cake, Marietta Cellars, Cameron Hughes, Bogle, Frei Brothers, Graziano, Joel Gott and Trentadue. You also can find tasty imports from Spain, Chile and Australia at $5 a bottle.

The pandemic is not slowing our collective enthusiasm for imbibing wine. On the contrary, Forbes magazine has predicted that the U.S. will be the biggest alcohol e-commerce market in 2021. With this in mind, it’s clear people will not be deterred from purchasing wine while fighting the coronavirus; they will, in fact, always find a way to explore wine.

Wine writer Peg Melnik can be reached at peg.melnik@pressdemocrat.com or 707-521-5310.