The most common and most likely answer to this crossword clue is the 8 letter word SAUTERNE
I've seen this crossword clue in Financial Times
S
A
U
T
E
R
N
E
More clues leading to the result SAUTERNE
- Wine drunk neat, sure!
- White bird in alcohol, less cold
- Sensible case for brewing true wine
- D provided by pick-up in French river
- Wine drunk neat? Sure
- A white, briefly fried seabird
- Thus go round when you hear wine mentioned
- Stroll with number at end to get European wine
- Bird dunked in wet dressing, not cold wine
- Cook last bits of butter in fine wine
Buddy explains!
The cryptic/wordplay part
In cryptic crossword there's often an wordplay/cryptic part as well.This part involves a more complex hint, such as an anagram, homophone, hidden word, etc.
Sadly, We don't have an explanation for this specific crossword clue yet.