ALTANO 2007 ($10) PORTUGAL>

July around here is known for two things — the Fourth of July, of course, and heat. The average high temperature in Dallas in July is 95, and the record high for every day is 105 or more for 30 of the month’s 31 days.

So why do so many wine drinkers insist on drinking big, heavy red wines for holiday picnics and backyard barbecues during July? Your guess is as good as mine. Those wines, with their high alcohols and rough tannins, sound about as pleasant as sitting on the roof during a July afternoon.

The explanation that I usually get from red wine drinkers who insist on red wine even though it makes the sweat bead on their foreheads is that they don’t like white wine. You can’t argue with that, and know because I have tried and failed. Instead, I learned to recommend red wines that offer the red wine qualities they like, such as dark fruit without trace of sweetness, without the qualities that make big red wines so unpleasant in hot weather.

Generally, these wines aren’t always from the bestknown parts of California (or California at all). Best yet, because they aren’t always from the best-known parts of California, they are often inexpensive and almost always offer good value. These three are just start and are all available at Central Market:

This red blend from the Rhone region of France, mostly grenache, is juicy and well-balanced (think red fruits) with some black pepper. Given how cute the name and label are (a garden fence, while jardin means garden in French), it’s surprisingly good. Put this in the refrigerator for 20 or 30 minutes to cool it down, and drink it with any kind of grilled beef.

Riccardo

Cotarella, who oversees this line of Italian wines, is genius. The Falescos are always cheap, always wellmade, and always deliver value. The sangiovese has cherry fruit, acid and even some minerality, and it’s head and shoulders above similarly priced Chianti. Drink this with smoked chicken or most roasted vegetables.

This red blend from Portugal is one of the great secrets of the cheap wine business. It has lots of raisiny fruit — think of it as much lighter version of an Australian shiraz. It’s suitable for porch sipping and hamburgers.

—JEFF SIEGEL

JEFF

SIEGEL’SWEEKLYWINE REVIEWS

appear every Wednesday on the Advocate Back Talk blog,

lakewood.advocatemag.com/blog.

WITH YOUR WINE Chicken breast in lemon juice and olive oil

What better to grill than chicken breasts marinated in the ingredients in which chicken breasts were made to be marinated? Plus, it involves pounding the breasts (use a rolling pin), and that is always therapeutic. The Côté Jardin, despite being red, would pair nicely with this.

Serves four, takes about 20 minutes (Courtesy of Barb Freda)

4 boneless, skinless chicken breasts

Olive oil

Juice from one lemon

2 cloves crushed garlic

A couple of stems of fresh rosemary

Salt and pepper to taste

1. Pound the breasts until very thin. Place in a Zip-loc bag.

2. Add olive oil, lemon juice, the crushed garlic, fresh rosemary, salt and pepper. Marinate in the refrigerator until dinnertime. Remove and grill until the chicken is done.

ask the WINE GUY?

WHY DO WE CALL THE WINE SANGIOVESE, AND THEITALIANS CALL IT CHIANTI?

In Europe, wine is labeled by the region it’s from, so sangiovese made in Chianti (which is in Tuscany) is called Chianti, just as red wine made in Burgundy is called red Burgundy. In the United States we label wines by grape, so it’s sangiovese and pinot noir.

—JEFF SIEGEL

ASK THE WINE GUY taste@advocatemag.com

STORY BY RACHEL STONE

PHOTOS BY CAN TÜRKYILMAZ AND CAITY COLVARD

Advocate readers were asked to send in photos of their pets. We received droves of darling doggie pics — pointy-eared Dobies, droopyeyed hounds, mussed-up mutts and dogs wearing clothes (which never gets old). The following is but a sampling of the sundry submissions that drew from our editors the most emphatic, “aww”s.

NAME/BREED: Lucy/miniature schnauzer

AGE: 2

SKILLS/TRICKS: understands English

PEOPLE’SNAMES: Talya Boerner

Lucy the mini schnauzer was the runt of the litter, but she’s smart as a whip.

She has a basket full of toys, and when her owners tell her “go get your ducky,” she never brings the squeaky hamburger. This one knows the difference.

In one day, she trained her owners to let her out whenever she rings jingle bells hanging from the back doorknob.

“She figured that our real fast,” Boerner says.

But Lucy’s real talent is making friends.

She gets along swimmingly with Cosmo, the Munger Place pup who doesn’t like any other dogs.

And she’s a regular at the well-known Worth Street hangout that is neighbor Harry Gibson’s front porch.

“We can’t go for a walk without stopping at Harry’s porch because she wants to stop and see him and drink out of his water bowl,” Boerner says.

Lucy is bossy — she gets up in the middle of the night barking, almost daily, at a possum that hangs out on the porch. And she will stand and stare at her leash until someone takes her out.

But she’s all love. Lucy’s favorite place to sleep is all the way under the covers at the foot of the bed.

THANK YOU, READERS,

for your enthusiastic response to our pet cover contest! We received photos of so many cute animals, and unfortunately, didn’t have enough space to publish them all. Keep a lookout for additional photos in the “Pet Pause” segment in future issues of the Advocate

If you didn’t enter the contest but think your pet should be in print, send a photo via email to editor@advocatemag.com or snail mail to 6301 Gaston Ave., Suite 820, Dallas, 75214. Make sure to include your name, zip code, phone number, pet’s name and a brief description of the photo.

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NAME/BREED: Tara/mutt

AGE: 2

SKILLS/TRICKS: mentors kittens

PEOPLE’SNAMES: Robyn Flessner and Aaron Price bottle feed the kitten, she would sit at the door and just bark and bark,” Flessnersays.“Sofinally, I said, ‘let’s just let her in and see what happens.’”

Robyn Flessner went into the pet store for catnip one day and came out with a dog. As a professional pet sitter and dog walker, she takes in as many homeless pets as she can handle, and she couldn’t resist Tara. And the dog got along fine with the couple’s two cats.

A fewweekslater,Flessnerand Price found a 7-day-old black-andwhite cat whose mother had abandoned it. They kept the tiny kitten in a dark, warm room, and they made sure to keep Tara out.

What happened is that Tara sat downnexttothekitten,named Curry, and watched over her.

“It’s like she knew that this baby was just defenseless,” Flessner says. “I guess that’s how they developed a strong bond of trust because Curry has been around Tara since before she could even see.”

Oncethekittengotbigenough, dog and cat became playmates and cuddle buddies.

Flessner and Price have the pictures to prove it.

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NAME/BREED: Jenny/ Catahoula cur

AGE: 2

SKILLS/TRICKS: obedience

PEOPLE’SNAMES: Brian Hall

Brian Hall’s girlfriend found JaQueMo, the Shi Tzu, driving down the street one day. His hair was all matted, and he was hungry, but he hopped right into the car and found a new home.

A few weeks later, when Hall was walking “Mo-Mo” near Ferguson Road, a dog came running up to them.

“No one was looking for her,” Hall says. “I thought, ‘this is crazy. This is such a beautiful dog. I can’t believe no one wants her.’”

Turnsout,she’s a Catahoulacur, also known as a Catahoula leopard dog because of its trademark spots.

He named her Jenny.

Hallowns a landscapingcompany, Paradise Landscapes, and now Jenny likes to go to work with him, digging up soil where Hall plants flowers.

Little 9-lb. JaQueMo, whose nickname is“theterrorist”,barksandbitesat Jenny to get her to do what he wants. The Shih Tzu once got out during a house party and got two broken ribs picking a fight with dogs down the street. He’s a bruiser.

But Jenny is the good one.

She sits in Hall’s Little Forest Hills front yard, sometimes for hours, and she won’t leave the yard even to chase a squirrel.

“She gets to the edge of the yard, and I tell her ‘Not another step,’ and she won’t take that step,” he says. “Her purpose is to be part of the family. She’s such a good girl.”

NAME/BREED: Ms. Kitzie Kat/ feline

AGE: 1.5

SKILLS/TRICKS: bird watching

PEOPLE’SNAMES: Terri Higgins

Terri Higgins and her family had just come home from a family reunion out of town. It was about 10 p.m., and they were tired.

“I heard this crying, and I though it was a bird at first,” she says. “I was like, I’m not going to deal with this. I was exhausted.”

But she got a flashlight and hunted around her backyard until she found it: a tiny, bawling kitten.

“I wasn’t sure I was ready for a cat,” Higgins says. “And it’s like she fell out of the sky.”

Higginshadbeen“catless”sincesix years before when her two cats, Missy and Mr Kitty, who both were over 20 years old, had to be put down at the same time.

Now Kitzie has her own room — a guest room that is decorated with cat pictures and birdhouses. She sleeps on her own bed in that room every night.

During the day, she keeps Higgins, who is an artist, company. Her favorite place to lie, as a kitten, was on top of the easel. And Higgins thinks she’s a very artistic cat.

“I couldn’t have asked for a better cat,” Higgins says. “She’s just so sweet.”

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NAME/BREED: Pearl and Harvey, LOL cats

A GE: 4 and 1.5, respectively

SKILL S /TRICKS: Internet sensations

PEO P LE’ SN AMES: Liesl and Jon McQuillan

Harvey the cat is always striking these funny poses. Liesl McQuillan got a shot of him with his elbow propped up on a box, looking out the window.

It’s a riot.

She uploaded it to icanhascheezburger.com, a site for the Internet time-waster known as LOL cats. The site used Harvey’s picture, and gave him the caption, “bored cat iz bored”. And the picture made it into the most recent “I Can Has Cheezburger?” book, which is based on the site.

But Harvey doesn’t let the celebrity go to his head. Liesl found him on the SMU campus, where she thinks a student probably abandoned him. He’s one of six cats in the McQuillans’ Little Forest Hills household.

Another is Harvey’s nemesis, Pearl. Although she hasn’t made it to the World Wide Web yet, Liesl describes her as “the most beautiful cat, clearly, in the whole world.”

All of the McQuillans’ cats are inside all the time, and Liesl says the key to keeping a tidy kitty household is changing the litter boxes every day.

“We don’t have kids,” Liesl says.

NAME/BREED: Pepe Houdini Lightning/Pomeranian

AGE: 4 or 5

SKILLS/TRICKS: modeling

PEOPLE’SNAMES: Marcia and Brian Phillips and 1-year-old Clyde

MarciaPhillipsgrewupinMunger Place, so she’s seen many abandoned dogs.

“People, when they don’t want their pet anymore, they will just bring them to a nice neighborhood and leave them thinkingthatsomeonewilltakecare of them,” she says. “I’ve lived in this neighborhoodmywholelife,andwe never bought a dog. They just show up.”

That’s what they think happened to Pepe.

Marcia’smomhad a neighborwho found a Pomeranian and couldn’t find its owners. So the Phillipses took him in.

Theythoughthewasstill a puppy because he was so small, but the vet told them he was just malnourished.

“He’sallfluffyandbeautifulnow,” she says.

And he seems to know it. Unlike so manydogs,Pepelikestotakewarm baths, and he likes to wear clothes.

He wears sweaters in winter and bandanas in summer. But most important are his pajamas.

“If he doesn’t get his jammies on, or if we forget, he will sit next to me and be like, ‘Hello?’” Marcia says.

He has PJs with little ducks, a pair with little teddy bears on them, a redand-white pair with a faux trap door, and the obligatory Christmas jammies. In the morning, he knows it’s time to get dressed.

“Everybodyexpectstoseehimin outfits now,” Marcia says. “So the pressure’s on.”

If all this sounds a little crazy, that’s OK. The Phillipses are in on the joke.

Their son, Clyde, was born a year ago, and Pepe loves to be around the baby.

“It’s like he’s always been here,” she says. “And he was just missing before.”