Porch Pounders (aka: All Day Wines)

My friends have rented a house outside of Phoenix with a wrap-around porch for an upcoming girls’ weekend away. I assume we’re going to be spending a lot of time lounging and visiting on that porch. Thus, “porch pounders” will be the theme of our weekend-long wine tasting.

As I think about which wines to taste, it’s clear that my friends and I have matured a bit over the years. In college, we used to spend all day drinking on the patio of a bar called Cain & Abel’s in Austin, Texas.  Our goal was to flirt, get tan and let the good times roll. And that, of course, required oodles of bourbon and coke. Don’t judge.

More Wine, Less Headache

Ah, but those days have passed, and now I’m looking for wines that we can drink all day without getting completely wasted, bloated or sick. My job is to choose wines that are low cal, low sugar and low alcohol.

Luckily, the wines that fit those parameters best are dry whites or roses, which have the added benefit of keeping us cool. The fine folks at Wine Folly have been thinking about this and go deep on calorie count and alcohol level in this tutorial. I also liked this article from Shape magazine on a similar theme, along with wine recommendations.

I’ll be back in touch soon with the results of the wine tasting and recommendations by tribe. Which reminds me: what tribe are you? And what is your favorite porch pounder—that is, a wine you can sip for hours? Tell us in the comments section below.