C'mon baby, light your fire. Labor Day, coming Monday, is tied with Memorial Day as the second most popular holiday for grilling. Sixty-two percent of Americans will grill out, according to a survey by the trade group Hearth, Patio and Barbecue Association.
The two holidays neatly bookend the summer grilling season, with the Fourth of July in first place with 76 percent.
Why do we grill? More than 70 percent say it's to improve flavor, with 42 percent say it's to entertain family and friends.
What do we grill? Burgers (85 percent), steak (80 percent), hot dogs (79 percent) and chicken (73 percent).
What sides do we grill? Corn (41 percent), potatoes (41 percent) and other veggies (32 percent).
The most popular barbecue sauce flavors, the survey said, are hickory, mesquite, honey and spicy-hot.
In northern states, Labor Day marks the approaching end of the summer grilling season with snow possible before long. The South is different, of course. When we grill on Labor Day, we face more weeks of heat, taking solace in the hope that the weather should turn comfortable, if it's a good year, in time for Halloween.
Either way, we need some good wines to go with the grilling.
First, we need some wine for the chef, and for early arriving guests. Ice-cold bubbly is the answer here. Prosecco, maybe. Plunge a couple of bottles into the ice chest.
For the rest of the meal, it gets complicated. Burgers and cheeseburgers need a red wine that's soft and comfortable, maybe a shiraz, a pinot noir, a malbec, a red blend.
Steaks need bigger, more tannic wines. Cabernet sauvignon, merlot and syrah are good choices.
Chicken calls for white wine. It doesn't have to be the same old chardonnay. You can try a pinot grigio.
For sides, grilling vegetables is all the rage today. Just slather a bit of oil on a chunk of Vidalia onion, a big portobello mushroom, slices of zucchini, bell pepper, eggplant, even carrots (big, long ones so they don't fall through the grill) wedges of cabbage and stalks of romaine lettuce to char for a smoky Caesar salad.
For these, sauvignon blanc with its herbal flavors is a nice choice.
Finally, for dessert, you can grill halved peaches or plums or even pound cake and serve them with a dollop of whipped cream and a nice sweet, lightly sparkling red dessert wine such as Banfi's Rosa Regale.
We should celebrate. School's starting, and so is football.
