Summertime, and the drinkin’ is easy

You probably want to spend most of construction season outside, appreciating whatever summer splendor while you can. Ditch the glass stemware or beer bottles so you don’t have to take your idiot cousin to the hospital after you accidentally drop a pint or wine glass while trying to hop on a boat. Plastic is perfect.

Second, buy twice as much ice as you think you need. Ice cold PBR tastes like swimming with the dolphins. At room temperature, it’s a bit closer to swimming with month-old cheese dip. Pony up and get the extra ice.

Third and most important, pace yourself. If Mother Nature has blessed us with a sunny, 85-degree afternoon, you might as well milk that for all it’s worth. If the day plan includes multiple drinks, avoid the high-alcohol stuff. For red wines, zinfandel, shiraz and merlot often sit north of 15 percent alcohol, and cabernet sauvignon, southern Spanish reds and southern French reds can get up in that range as well. For the white wine drinkers, let go of the California chardonnay for a day.

Vinho Verde is a great solution for many reasons. Portuguese for “green wine,” Vinho Verde is a style from northwest Portugal on the border of Spain. The region produces red, white and rosé wines, but almost all of the Vinho Verde in the American market is white, dry and just a little bit fizzy. The name implies young wine, in contrast to other wines that are aged in barrels and/or bottles before being released to the public.

We are better humans for being able to consume this delicious and wildly inexpensive treat. The most dependable (and ubiquitous) option on the market is Famega. With a spritz, Famega is refreshingly tart. It smells of green apples with a tiny bit of fresh herbaceousness, and that’s just how it tastes. Vinho Verde will never win any awards for complexity, but for $8 at 10 percent alcohol, that’s a refreshing deal I’ll take any day of the summer.

Portugal’s Iberian partner, Spain, also has a solid contribution to the low-alcohol, high-value game. Cava is a sparkling wine style made in seven different Spanish regions, but most famously in Catalonia — the semi-autonomous region that is home to Barcelona, right up against the Pyrenees mountains and the border with southern France.

Codorniu’s Anna Blanc de Blancs is a safe pick for about $12 at 11.5 percent alcohol. It tastes only slightly toasty, but its bright lemon flavors and a pick-yourfresh-fruit sort of style comprise Anna’s calling card.

Historically, Cava is made mostly with three grapes that are not commonly used elsewhere: xarel-lo, macabeo, and parellada. About 30 years ago, laws changed to allow grapes like chardonnay, pinot noir, garnacha tinta, and monastrell. Anna is largely a sparkling chardonnay, but with the three original grapes in the mix too.

If family and friends have a hankering for sweet wines, there are copious options on store shelves. But too much sugar can be a bit rough when you’re lounging poolside; this is where bubbles help your cause.

Along these lines, New Age Rosé is kind of, well, prurient. A malbec/merlot blend from Argentina, it’s basically an adult fruit punch It features loads of cherries, raspberries, watermelon flavors, and at 8 percent alcohol, it should be somewhat lightweight and pleasurable to the average champion of Saccharin. Also, for less than $10, any party host shouldn’t be too upset when it quickly (and unsurprisingly) disappears from your personal stash.

If a special picnic/patio dinner is what you’re after, don’t fear the sweetness but look for elegance. This is a good time to go old-school into Germany. Max Ferdinand

Richter is an estate in Mosel, not too far from Luxembourg or the French region of Lorraine. Its been a family-owned estate for more than 300 years, and its expertise is consistently on display in its wines. Some of the best mid-tier deals in the world are from Germany, and this estate is no exception. For $25, its 2012 Veldenzer Elisenberg Riesling Kabinett shows ripe, fleshy nectarine and deep orange flavors — racy and bright, but slightly soft. This excitingly complex wine, at 8 percent alcohol, is lovable by all different kinds of drinkers.

A quick note for anyone looking to get into German wines: The labels are a giant pain in the ass. Sorry. Using the Richter riesling as an example, Veldenzer refers to the vineyard region, which is near the village of Veldenz. Elisenberg is the vineyard site that grows the grapes for the wine. Riesling is the grape used for the wine. Kabinett refers to the ripeness of the grapes at harvest time. If Spatlese or Auslese is on the wine label, that means the grapes were more ripe than the Kabinett grapes. Because of that, Spatlese wines are usually sweeter than Kabinett wines, and Auslese are usually even sweeter than both.

If all this makes your head spin, there are plenty of non-Germanic options available. After all, no one wants to think too hard about wine when there’s lakeside adventures to be had.