You Absolutely Have to Try a White Wine Martini — Here’s Why

When Massican winemaker Dan Petroski, found himself with unexpected free time during the height of the pandemic, he did what many of us did to pass the hours — mix cocktails.

Specifically, Petroski says he made a staggering number of Martinis using Massican vermouth that he'd produced with his own wine and distillate, plus some organic Northern California botanicals. And while his home was initially stocked with ample amounts of this vermouth, the pandemic lasted for far longer than anyone had anticipated, and Petroski eventually ran out.

The solution, it seemed, was clear. Taking a page from the Italian food philosophy of “cucina povera,” the Napa Valley resident looked for a solution and settled on swapping out vermouth with his own Massican white wine.    

“Cucina povera essentially means you’re using the dregs of what’s left over. You’re using the bits of meat and carrots from yesterday to put into today’s stew. It was this idea of, If you don’t have vermouth in your house and you’re making Martinis, what do you do? You kind of hack it,” says Petroski, a 10-year veteran of the New York media landscape who had left in 2005 to work the vineyards in Sicily. He eventually landed in Napa Valley, launching the Massican label in 2009, which quickly grew in esteem, eventually leading Petroski to be named San Francisco Chronicle's 2017 Winemaker of the Year.

“I actually found that using wine instead of vermouth was very intuitive because you’re basically adding all the aromas and flavors that you would with vermouth — just without the sugar or the added alcohol," he continues. "So you’re actually bringing the sugar content down, you’re bringing the alcohol content down, but still maintaining all of the herbs and spices and citrus that you would get in a vermouth. For me, that was that was like, Oh my god. It was like a revelation. Because as we were all thinking about drinking lighter, brighter, and fresher, we’re thinking about drinking lower alcohol. This is not a huge jump from the amount of alcohol in a Martini with vermouth, but you know, every step counts.”

The result is a Martini that’s still plenty dry, while presenting as mellower and less astringent — a more approachable Martini, if you will.

Petroski also tried using white wine with a number of other cocktails, and while some were serviceable, others were a complete flop. It was truly the Martini that worked best.

“I started using wine as part of my cocktail regime. I would put it in as my dry white vermouth," he says. "I tried it in a Negroni and it didn’t work so well. I tried in places where you would use a dry white vermouth, like a white Negroni or a Perfect Manhattan. But it worked really well with the Martini because you were dealing with a lot of the same citrus and herbal notes that you have in gin and it just really gave the glass a lot of brightness and freshness. It gave it a lot of lift.”

Eventually, by way of common friends and family, Petroski’s idea slowly spread to the East Coast. Over at Coterie in Charleston, South Carolina — a coffee shop by day and cocktail bar by night — founder Jeremy Buck likes to make a classic 50/50 Martini for himself and his friends. But instead of vermouth, he reaches for white wine, recently showcasing the cocktail during a seminar at the Food & Wine Classic in Charleston.

He had learned of it through his future sister-in-law, the sommelier and Wine Access Unfiltered podcast host Amanda McCrossin. “What I do is an ounce-and-a-half of gin and an ounce-and-a-half of white wine, and then classically it’s with a dash of orange bitters and a lemon twist,” says Buck, who has worked at bars everywhere from Mumbai to Vietnam to Hong Kong. “What the bitters do is it brings out some of those citrus notes, but it also kind of brings everything together.”

Buck, who likes to use Bulrush Gin, says that the drink is versatile enough to allow for different tastes in gin — meaning, you truly can use whatever you have on hand. “I really liked how the [Bulrush] gin worked because the botanicals are kind of light, but it’s really your preference,” he says. “If you like a more Juniper-forward gin, like a Tanqueray, that’s going to be at the forefront. If you like something super subtle, like a Roku Japanese gin, it’ll still come through smoothly.”

The same goes for white wine. You can use many of the bottles you may already have as long as they’re not too oaky, too acidic, or too high in sugar.

“Massican Annia, being a blend of grapes, is a good place to start,” says Buck. “For this case of just wanting a clean, fresh, gin Martini, I would lean toward the dryer side because that’s what we’re going for. I wouldn’t go for something that’s like an old-school, malic, buttery Chardonnay. I’ve done that before and kind of played on it. Given that buttery sense, it was like a ghee Martini, but that’s a whole different topic.”