Wine Of The Week: Raventós i Blanc de Nit Magnum

When it comes to Labor Day Weekend drinking, bigger is always better. This weekend? Consider a magnum.

Saying this may make me an arbiter of chaos, but I love a magnum. If you’ve got a few folks coming over, a magnum just makes sense. I’ll even crack a magnum over a holiday weekend that’s long, languid, and full of day drinking.

With larger format bottles, there’s less oxygen touching the wine making it often more stable for a longer period of time. So I hereby beckon you to have a few glasses of something sunshine-worthy tonight, pour it for a few friends at a barbecue on Saturday, and sip it through Sunday and Monday (if it lasts that long). When it comes to Labor Day weekend drinking, bigger is better.

One of my favorite options for large bottles? The bright bubbles of a sparkling rose. Raventós bottles their wines in a new appellation within Catalonia, that operates with very strict quality regulations. They blend xarel-lo, macabeo, parellada, and monastrell for a rich, bone-dry rose with notes of white flowers, crunchy apples, savory cassis, and bitter red flowers. Fizzy and persistent, with a good acidity and a long finish. 

Recently, we opened a magnum of Cava at a dinner with a dozen or so friends. A bottle that size is just enough to give everyone a glass for a toast. (Read: the bottle disappeared very quickly.) Raventós makes highly universal bubbles that pair well through every food group, though we opted for towers of deep-fried softshell crab and piles of spicy noodles. $55

Kate Dingwall is a WSET-trained sommelier and seasoned spirits writer. Her work has appeared in Wine Enthusiast, Eater, Forbes.com, and Food & Wine, and she pours wine at one of Canada’s top restaurants.