The Five Best White Seaside Wines

The Five Best White Seaside Wines
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The Five Best White Seaside Wines

You may be stuck in town, or miles from the nearest beach – but do not despair, these bottles may just transport you to the seaside. Here is our selection of the five best white seaside wines.

The Five Best White Seaside Wines

Some white wines just speak of sea spray and ozone, ocean and freshness. They were grown by the seaside and their breezy, tangy, salty freshness was bottled for you to enjoy – if you close your eyes, you can almost hear the crashing of the waves. Here are five of the best. 

Albariño

This Spanish white grape variety from the Atlantic Coast in Galicia combines seaside breeziness and tangy freshness with rounded, luscious notions of peach. Albarinño is thick-skinned, so the grapes stay healthy despite the sea mists often shrouding these coastal vineyards. The wines are as vigorous and fresh as this verdant corner of northern Spain. 

Vinho Verde

Made from the grape varieties Loureiro, Arinto, Trajadura and Avesso, these slightly fizzy, super-light dry Vinho Verde wines are like a sea breeze from the Portuguese Atlantic coast where they are grown. These super-fresh wines hardly clock up much alcohol, which is another boon. They make a perfect aperitif with their sherbet-like, slight effervescence.   

Muscadet

Muscadet, from the French Atlantic coast in Nantes, is one of Europe’s great, classic seafood wines. Sadly, it seems to have fallen out of fashion, but quite undeservedly so. Made from the Melon de Bourgogne grape, Muscadet is always light, always bone-dry, always saline and savoury. It was just made to go with towering platters of crustaceans.  

Malvazija Istrarska

This is the local white wine of the Istrian coast in Croatia. Kissed by Adriatic breezes, the vines ripen aromatic fruit that makes fragrant wine. Malvasija Istarska is floral and bright with a lovely, lemony leafiness that just calls out for seafood and sunshine.   

Picpoul

Picpoul de Pinet is an indigenous grape variety from the Languedoc. Almost all of its plantings are centrered around the town of Pinet, near the seaport of Sète, on the Étang de Thau, a Mediterranean lagoon famed for its Bouzigues oysters. Picpoul, naturally, is an ideal partner for the bivalves, with its lemony, salty, almost coniferous fragrance.  

Albariño
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Albariño
Portugal's summer spirit
©shutterstock
Portugal's summer spirit
Muscadet is perfect for saefood
©shutterstock
Muscadet is perfect for saefood
Malvazija Istrarska  
©shutterstock
Malvazija Istrarska  
Right next to the Picpoul vineyards: oysterbeds in the Etang de Thau
©shutterstock
Right next to the Picpoul vineyards: oysterbeds in the Etang de Thau
Anne Krebiehl MW