Summertime and the drinking is Rosé

With the onset of summer, it is time to put the case for this much maligned style of wine. Many people consider rosé to be unsophisticated, and not for serious wine drinkers. It is all too often associated with slightly sweet wines lacking in flavour and made for easy drinking. Perhaps it is because for many people, their first experience of rosé wine was drinking Mateus rosé back in the days when this wine was produced in a sweeter style than it is today. In fact some of the rosés of southern France and Spain are very complex wines and far removed from the light styles often encountered in Portugal.


First of all, what is vin rosé? It is a wine that is produced from red grapes which have been vinified with a minimum of contact between the skins and the juice. Because the vast majority of red grapes have colourless juice, the colour of a red wine comes from contact with the skins (the skins also provide most of the tannins). It follows that if the skin contact is reduced the wine will be lighter in colour. What a still vin rosé is not, and under appellation controllée rules cannot be, is a mixture of red and white wines. I say ‘still’ advisedly, because rosé Champagne is usually produced by blending red and white wines.

Because it is made with red varieties, a rosé should have the complexity and flavours of a red wine rather than a white. The grapes used will depend on the area, but Grenache is perhaps the most common, when vinified as a red, this variety makes very full bodied high alcohol wines. Because the skin contact is kept to a minimum the extraction of tannins is also minimised, and this style of wine is best drunk young as it lacks the structure for ageing.

So, where should you look for good rosés? Sadly the answer is not in most wine merchants or supermarkets. The selection available here in the UK reflects the public’s lack of knowledge and interest in this style. The best bet is to develop your taste on the hoof, and seek out the best wines whilst in the regions where they are produced. A generalisation would be to say go looking in any country with a hot climate and a meat eating tradition. This is hardly surprising as rosé is the wine of choice in hot climates where an alternative to red is required.

In France, the best wines for me are to be found in the south. Good examples can be found in the appellations controlées of Cotes de Provence, Bandol, Cassis, Palette, Coteaux d’Aix en Provence, Tavel and Cotes du Rhone. There are many growers of note in the area and perhaps the most famous (and expensive!) is Domaines Ott who bottle all of their wines in the characteristic shaped Cotes de Provence bottle which is shaped rather like an Indian club. I have tasted their 1993 Cour du grain and 1994 Bandol both of which are very impressive. The Cour du grain is a very pale rosé , orangy pink or pelure d’oignon as the French refer to it. The flavour is astonishing for a rosé , with complex vanilla and floral notes. The wine goes very well with food and is certainly not for glugging. The producers in Provence take their wines very seriously and Ott wines like many others are not cheap. In fact I used to think that Ott stood for ‘over the top’ until I tasted it.

The wines retail at around Ff 120 a bottle and can be obtained in the UK from Nicholas wine merchants.

Whilst still not cheap, Tavel, an appellation controlée which is located to the west of Chateauneuf du Pape, produces some very good wines, mainly from Grenache with the addition of some Cinsault. Tavel can be rather alcoholic and the appellation stipulates a maximum alcohol level of 13.5%. It is best drunk young as it is prone to oxidation.

Further south, in Spain, rosé is also taken very seriously. Here it is known as rosado or clarete, depending on its depth of colour. As in France the predominant grape variety is Grenache, or Garnacha as it is known in Spain. Nearly all regions produce a pink wine, with some notable examples produced in Rioja (Faustino VII is good value) and Navarre. Further east, in Penedes, Miguel Torres makes a rather unusual rosado which contains a real cocktail of grapes; Cabernet Sauvignon, Pinot Noir, Chardonnay are some of the unlikely varieties mentioned on the back label.

In the US rosé is usually known as ‘blush’ and can be very pale indeed. This style became popular in the 1970s when Bob Trinchero of Sutter Home Winery in Napa Valley invented ‘white’ Zinfandel and it became the latest craze. What happened was that the quality of the grapes in that year was poor and not enough colour was going into the wine so Bob came up with the idea of taking the cap from one fermentation tank and adding to another. This gave one tank of very robust Zinfandel and one tank of pinkish slightly sweet wine which Bob had wanted to throw away.

He was prevented by his mother who said that it should be bottled as it was as it would go well chilled and served at picnics, the rest, as they say, is history. Although not the first person to vinify Zinfandel as a ‘blush’ wine, Trinchero was responsible for its commercialisation and saw his sales increase from 25,000 cases in 1980 to 1.5 million in 1986. These days there are some wineries making serious, southern Rhone style rosé wines as well as easy drinking quaffing wines; Zingris from Storybook Mountain is worth seeking out.

So the next time you are fortunate to be in an area which produces good rosé give yourself a treat and select it from the wine list. It is the perfect aperitif and is an ideal accompaniment to lunch in the Mediterranean sun.

Recommendations

You may be lucky enough to find these in your local merchant, if not ask. If enough people do that they might get the message!
France
Beaurevoir Tavel from Chapoutier
Cour du grain Cotes de Provence from Domaines Ott
Bandol from Chateau de Pibarnon
Spain
Faustino VII Rioja from Faustino Martinez
Conde de Valdemar Rioja Rosado from Bodegas Martinez Bujanda
USA
Grenache Rose Vin du Mistral from J Phelps
Rose Pacini Vineyard Zin Gris from Shooting Star Winery in Mendocino
Vin Gris de Cigare from Bonny Doon