There’s almost a contractual obligation that someone writing about wine in late May offer suggestions for summer sippers, also known as patio pounders, enological easy chairs, fuggedaboudit fermentations or dumb-it-down-for-me drinks. Call it whatever, the message is to turn off the brain, tune in the body, lie back and grab whatever is cold and close.

This is as it should be, when it arises from a genuine spirit of simplicity. But sometimes the spirit of the simple gets translated through the media into something more insidious that poses as simplicity but is actually its evil twin: simplism. I’ll define simplism as “the ideology of blandness, disseminated by the public relations industry and its puppets in media and advertising, for the purpose of selling container-loads of crap.”

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There's a happy middle ground between Chardonnay’s vibrancy and luxuriance, and the limestone soils of Saint-Vérand, this wine’s home, occupy it. Courtesy photo

There are so many wines out there, insipid in flavor and aroma and body, which one might call simple and reach for when desiring a simple refreshment, but which in their essence are not at all simple. They seem to be, because they have no noteworthy features. They are easy enough to get down.

These are the foot soldiers of the simplism ideology, marching in the annual parade to honor the police state of Inoffensivia: easy to obey, but only because of a great deal of behind-the-scenes activity and apparatus. In government, there’s a military-industrial complex to manage and a media apparatus to control, to effect an illusion of hunky-doryness. In wine, there’s an agricultural-industrial complex to administer, a chemical trade to support and a media apparatus to control. Only the dissidents are disturbed, and it’s hard for them to get the word out.

The dissidents (that’s you and me) shall this summer seek not the simplistic, but the unadorned. Simplistic wines are heavy on technical process, sharpened to an offend-no-one perfection point with machine-harvested grapes from large vineyards with disrespected soils, treated to cultured yeasts, quick fermentations at controlled temperatures, and whatever chemical additives are necessary after all that in order to ensure vintage consistency and market-tested primary flavors.

Unadorned wines are made simply. They are not necessarily “natural” (with little or no sulfur, biodynamic viticulture, untended vinifications), but they are made by people who want to produce a direct expression of well-regarded grapes that grow in a nice spot on the planet, a spot they’re interested in maintaining for a long time to come.

The prominent feature of unadorned wines is immediacy. Aromas and flavors might be fruity or flowery, raw or cooked, meat or vegetable, but no matter what, there’s a telltale freshness. One will be reminded of meadows or beaches. The texture of the wine, the way it glides past your tongue and flows through your system, will be supple, winsome, lucid.

The following wines have grabbed me in recent weeks. These did not win me over with over-the-top flavor arcs and crazy textural juxtapositions and opulent massages of aroma – all things I love, by the way, just not now. These grabbed me with a soft wink from the corner of the room. It’s grabbing by non-grabbing. If that’s too Zen-y to make head or tails of, a few sips of these wines will make it clear.

Domaine Romuald Petit Bourgogne Blanc 2013, $16 (Wicked). A truly naked Chardonnay would rip the teeth out of your mouth: it’s an acidic and temperamental grape, which is why so many who make wine from this grape batter it into submission through excessive oak. But there’s a happy middle ground between Chardonnay’s vibrancy and luxuriance. The limestone soils of Saint-Vérand, this wine’s home, occupy it. I love this wine’s calm expressiveness and unpretentious freshness. No chemical fertilizers, herbicides or pesticides in the vineyards; no sulfur during fermentation; no machines. Come back to Chardonnay.

ÄŒrnko JareninÄan 2013, $14 (1 liter) (Devenish). Just because you chill a white wine doesn’t make it refreshing. This rough-n-tumble blend of Mitteleuropean varietals – hand-harvested, sustainably farmed Welschriesling, Rhein- riesling, Müller-Thurgau, Yellow Muscat, Sauvignon Blanc – from eastern Slovenia is actually refreshing; intrinsically refreshing. This area is what used be known as Lower Styria, aka Austria, whose marl soils convene uniquely continental, Mediterranean and alpine climates.

The liter-bottle size broadcasts the intention: friends, boats, picnics. It’s remarkably joyous and engaging, and just because it’s kind of carefree in outlook doesn’t mean there’s no mineral significance to balance the fresh fruits (millions of years ago, the land was undersea, and it shows). It’s only 11 percent alcohol, but you could do as the Styrians do and spritz it with seltzer for a workday lunch break.

DeForville Dolcetto D’Alba 2012 ($20, Mariner). Dolcetto is one of those sommeliers’ reds. The guys/gals who are constantly tasting and assessing wine, and constantly suggesting to diners what to pair with sumptuous we’re-at-an-expensive-restaurant-so-we’re-going-big dishes need to relax their bodies and their tongues at the end of the night. Maybe there’s a scattered platter of charcuterie left over from service, or maybe a little pasta, or maybe a fish prep that didn’t get plated properly and so was tossed to a side table, unserved.

When you’ve been working hard and you want to kick back and not worry about anything, it’s hard to beat a well-made Dolcetto. Dolcetto is the undervalued daughter of Piemonte, smiling shyly from the corner of a family photo that features Nebbiolo and Barbera center-front. The DeForville, from the estate in Barbaresco, is exceptionally pretty, limpid and direct. Pale red fruits, a flinty flash of light, a loose hug. DeForville is simply classic. Hand-harvested grapes are allowed to ferment in stainless, then mature slowly in large oak botti before being bottled in the summer. It’s a relaxed, patient process, and yields a wine of similar character – for a drinker of similar temperament.

Frederic Lornet Trousseau 2010, $23 (Crush). The cool-climate Jura region, north of Burgundy heading toward Switzerland, feels like world headquarters for unadorned wine. While many headlines have been grabbed by Jura’s oxidative, sherry-like (and serious) vins jaunes from the Savagnin grape, the flexy, charming reds are so delightful it makes me happy to be alive.

The Lornet wine from biodynamically farmed Trousseau grapes is delicately perfumed with roses and sour cherry; a peppery wild berry component comes through on the palate, a sprinkle of bright acid. It’s a sideways taste of Burgundy, but even gauzier and more porous, more open than ordinary young red Bourgognes. It declaims, as all unadorned wines do, “Disrobe, ye worshippers in the church of the simple, and all will be revealed.”

Joe Appel works at Rosemont Market. Contact him at soulofwine.appel@gmail.com

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