One choice of white wine at a party can turn its goers poopy fast.
With a few exceptions (like my "talon"-fearing friend for whom Cabernet Sauvignon was verboten), red wine drinkers are a much more adaptable bunch--even those with a cellar full of Barolo will happily accept a glass of Malbec.
But offer a Chardonnay loyalist a glass of green-tinged, grapefruity Sauvignon Blanc and she may as well have been asked to drink boric acid.
Same reaction if you hand a Sauvignon Blanc-lover a Chardonnay that tastes like a 2x4 sprinkled with Butter Buds.
Rather than condone such bipartisanship, make peace with a crossover white that no one's ever heard of.
Hugging the hills along the craggy Adriatic coast of Italy's Le Marche lives Verdicchio--a white wine (made with a grape of the same name) that's capable of bridging this tricky chasm.
No longer the simpleton in the kitschy fish-shaped bottles of the 60s and 70s, Verdicchio's matured into a respectable, versatile, and age-worthy wine.
The climate--where humid sea air swirls with breezes off a tangle of local rivers--keeps the grapes cool and dry, polishing them into gems that are plump and ripe yet still fresh and alive.
Even using only stainless steel (no oak), the wine's producers beget a luscious, full-bodied mouthfeel (music to the Chard drinkers' ears) with a brisk, vivacious finish (what the SB set is after).
Neither party could complain of Verdicchio's flavor--a dance between the brightness of lemon zest and honeydew and the toasty notes of, say, a baked, amaretti-stuffed peach drizzled with cream.
If only all politics were so deliciously resolved.