{Quick Cherry Tomato and Arugula Pasta with Gerard Tremblay Chablis}

Wine: 2004 Gerard Tremblay, Domaine des Iles, Chablis, France (Chardonnay), $19.99
Major flavor components of the dishes: A very simple, fresh pasta of red scallions, garlic, sliced orange cherry tomatoes, and arugula sauteed in extra virgin olive oil, finished off with lemon juice and topped with parmesan.
Result: We raise a glass to this match!

Seattle is a great place to be a red wine drinker. It's true, a formidable red wine region lies just over the Cascade mountains and Oregon Pinot Noir country is just to the south, but that's not really what I mean. I mean simply that the weather here is fine for drinking reds. Ten months out of the year, it's temperate and mild -- and the red flows freely in the Chanson household. That's not a stunt I'd advise trying in most of the US. Particularly not this summer.

The point is, it's August 27th, and I'm thinking it's time to put away the whites and roses in preparation for another nice long season of nothing but red. But before we shut the door completely, Chanson wanted to polish off a Chablis. Serve it with a quick pasta of sauteed red scallions, garlic, sliced orange cherry tomatoes, and arugula, finished off with lemon juice and topped with parmesan.

All in all, a nice send off for summer. I like white burgundy. I like the steely, flinty styles. And this one was nice and minerally. The lemon juice in the sauce added a fresh brightness to the pasta. The wine had a nice citrus something, too, that sustained and carried out the bright flavor of the pasta. It tasted like sunshine. In a million years, a person born and bred on butterball California chardonnay couldn't have pegged this wine as having come from the same grape. But there it is.