The journalEntertaining
What to pour at your Labor Day cookout
Written by Ashburn Wine Shop | Bar & BistroAugust 4, 2026 · 3 minute read
Labor Day is Monday, September 7 this year, which means you have exactly one long weekend left to pretend summer isn't ending. Do it properly.
Three bottles, one grill, zero overthinking. Here's the lineup.
Open with something cold and loud
Henri Champliau's Crémant de Bourgogne Brut Rosé earned a 95-point Gold from Decanter and costs about half what actual Champagne would for the same welcome-mat moment. Pink grapefruit, brioche, fine bubbles. Hand someone a glass of this at the door and the party starts on time.
The white that survives everything on the table
Riva de la Rosa comes out of Friuli, Italy's white-wine country, and it does something New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc can't: enough restraint to handle corn, potato salad, and whatever mystery dip somebody brought, without picking a fight with any of it. Twenty-two dollars.
The red that actually wants to be cold
VRAC's Beaujolais is 100 percent Gamay grown on pink granite and limestone-marl soils, made with partial carbonic maceration in open tanks, the classic Beaujolais method for keeping a red light and juicy. That makes it the one red that doesn't sit out sweating on the picnic table. Twenty minutes in a cooler and it's bright cherry and raspberry with a floral lift, soft tannin and brisk acidity, happy next to a burger and unbothered by ninety-degree Loudoun heat.
How to keep three bottles happy at a cookout
Wine at a cookout fails for one reason: heat. A bottle on a sunny picnic table can warm ten degrees in half an hour, and warm wine tastes flabby and boozy. Keep every bottle in the cooler or in the shade between pours, reds included.
Fill the cooler with ice and water, not ice alone. The water wraps the whole bottle and chills it in about fifteen minutes. Put the sparkling in first, since it needs to be coldest, and the Gamay in last, since it only needs a short chill.
Pour smaller glasses more often. A full glass sitting in the sun is warm by the time it's half gone. Three-ounce pours stay cold, stretch each bottle further, and give people an excuse to come back to the cooler and talk.
What to put on the grill with each bottle
Start the Crémant with whatever comes out first: chips, deviled eggs, shrimp skewers. Salty and fried food loves bubbles, because the acid and fizz scrub the palate clean between bites.
Move to the Sauvignon Blanc with the sides. Corn on the cob, tomato salad, grilled vegetables and anything with herbs or vinaigrette all play well with a white that has acidity and a little green edge.
Save the chilled Gamay for burgers, hot dogs and barbecue chicken. Its bright fruit stands up to ketchup and smoke without the heavy tannin that turns bitter next to char. If someone asks for a big Cabernet instead, hand them the Gamay first and let them decide after.
How much to buy for a long weekend
Figure about half a bottle per wine-drinking adult for a three-hour cookout, then round up. A party of twelve wine drinkers needs six bottles, so two of each of the three is the easy order. Unopened bottles keep for months, and leftover wine on a Tuesday night has never made anyone sad.
Skew the order toward the white and the sparkling if the forecast says ninety degrees or more. Heat pushes people toward cold glasses, and the red goes slower until the sun drops behind the trees.
Leftovers after the long weekend
Opened sparkling wine loses its fizz within a day, so finish the Crémant first or seal it with a proper stopper. The Sauvignon Blanc keeps two or three days in the fridge with the cork pushed back in. The Gamay lasts about as long, and it tastes just as good cold from the fridge on Tuesday with leftover burgers.
Anything still sealed goes back in a cool, dark closet until the next excuse to fire up the grill.
That's the whole list. Grab all three, or grab whichever fits your cooler, and come tell us how the burgers turned out. We'll be pouring something similar at the bar all weekend.
