Endless summer: The pairing of food and drink

Among my earliest summer memories are of my dad in our suburban St. Louis backyard standing over a smoking Weber kettle, barbecuing everything from pork steaks to ribs to chicken.Usually it was Sunday. It always involved family, and, if we were lucky, neighbors or friends. Always, there would be baseball on the radio and beer in my dad’s hand or in his basting bucket — or both. My dad believed that any barbecue could be enhanced with a splash of hops and barley; it didn’t matter what was on the grill. It also didn’t matter what was in the can. This was St. Louis in the 1960s, so for a working man that meant Falstaff or Hamms or Busch Bavarian. Budweiser, the King of Beers, was a luxury in our home.

Wait. This is a wine blog, right? What’s with all the beer talk?

Stay with me. We’ll get to wine in a moment.

It was summer, and summer meant barbecue. On those days, it was much more fun to be in the backyard. My mom and aunts and grandma would be busy in the kitchen getting all the sides ready, but the backyard was where the action was. So as the aroma of searing meats would fill the neighborhood, my brothers and I would be running through sprinklers or playing Indian ball or washers while the smooth voices of Jack Buck and Harry Caray would filter throughout, courtesy of KMOX Radio and the St. Louis Cardinals. Bob Gibson was always striking someone out, Lou Brock was always stealing a base and Red Schoendienst was always managing in the dugout. If the Cardinals weren’t winning, my grandpa, who liked to supervise the whole barbecue affair, would be yelling at the radio like he could do something about it.

I loved every moment of those summer Sundays. I remember every one of the sights, sounds and smells revolving around the pairing of food and drink. For me as a kid of the 1960s and ’70s in suburban St. Louis, summer meant beer and barbecue. Forty years later, my summer barbecues are red wine and ribeyes.

The calendar says summer starts in June, but we all know it starts this year on May 22 — the Friday of Memorial Day weekend. Pools open, sandals are ubiquitous and no one feels guilty about wearing white. Suddenly every woman has a pedicure and every man bermuda shorts. And so there’s no better time than a three-day holiday weekend to have a barbecue and make your own memories around the pairing of food and drink.

At some point this Memorial Day holiday weekend, I hope to throw a couple steaks on the Weber kettle and open up a bottle of red wine. Among my new favorites is a wine from Napa Valley called Black Ink, a red blend that, according to its label, is “exotic, decadent and mysterious.” If you’ve shied away from blends because you’re not sure what you’re going to get — and maybe the promise of mystery might scare you away — this is a good one to try. Its smoothness pairs well with the taste and texture of a red meat on a grill, just like Jack Buck’s smooth voice paired well with the gritty, unpredictable Harry Caray

And so we’re back to baseball and barbecue again. It’s summer, why not?

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