Pink is my favorite color. For a brief period in high school I tried to pretend otherwise: I rimmed my eyes with black liner and pretended that black was the closest color to my heart. I’m pretty sure everyone knew I was posing – it was pink all along.America’s relationship with rosé has suffered a similar fate as my affinity for pink. Confused by the marketing machine behind 70’s era “blush wine”, many Americans overlooked rosé varietals altogether for two decades. A surge of popularity in recent years has helped modern drinkers understand that rosé is NOT synonymous with white zin, and real rosé can be found on wine lists and in wine shops all over the city in it’s true form: pink, young, dry and most delightfully – inexpensive.
That said, rosé is as much a product of climate, terroire, and winemaking technique as red and white wine. Here are some delicious and wildly diverse rosés I’ve had the pleasure of tasting since the 2007 vintages began showing up in Boston this spring.
Commanderie de Peyrassol Rosé 2007
Cotes de Provence, France
Suggested retail: $20.99
Perhaps the biggest foil to the American abomination “blush” wine is a Provencal rosé, which is typically light peach in color and bone dry. Half of the rosé made in France comes from Provence, and 80% of the wine produced in the region is rosé, which also makes this a great wine to start any discussion of le vin rosé.
This blend of the usual Provencal rosé grapes (Syrah, Grenache and Cinsault) is an exceptional take on the region’s signature export. It boasts a delicate light peach hue that is as prim and classically matched to the bouquet, flavors and structure as Sex and the City’s Charlotte’s outfits. The nose is peachy with vague hints of roses – not like sticking your face in a bouquet, but like walking downwind of a flowering rose bush – and the wine feels silky and tender on the palate. The first sip will awaken your tastebuds with ripe white peach flavors before tapering to a pleasing mineral finish. A lesser wine might throw in the towel here and become too sweet, too jammy, or too tart – this wine is just right.
Consume on a hot day with Provencal staples – bouillabaisse, ratatouille, or anything with aioli – or fish in pretty much any form.
Muga Rosado 2007
Rioja Alta, Rioja Spain
Suggested retail: $11.99
This Rosado is a blend of three different grape varietals: 60% Garnarcha (red), 10% Tempranillo (also red), and 30% Viura (white.) Wait a minute, you might be thinking, adding juice from white grapes to juice from the red — can they do that? After a sip (or a bottle) of this wine you’ll agree — if the wine ends up this drinkable and delicious, the winemaker can do whatever they want. Its fetching peachy-pink hue is slightly darker than your bone-dry Provencal rosé, but the wine is easily as drinkable. All stone fruit on the palate with a pleasing minerality and light brininess, it pairs perfectly with steamed clams dipped in butter, or drizzled over a peach sorbet for dessert.
Pick up a bottle of this on an even hotter summer day. Better yet, pick up two – it’s one of those wines you’ll just want to keep on sipping.
Ciro Rosato 2007
Calabria, Italy
Suggested retail: $10.99
This Italian rosato is as different from the bone-dry rosés of Provence as you can get: it’s complex nose, full body, and masculine flavor profile make sipping this wine feel far more akin to drinking a light chilled red. Made with 100% Gaglioppo, an indigenous Calabrian grape varietal, just twelve hours of grape skin contact impart a deep, dark coral-pink hue to this wine which makes the peachy rosés of Southern France or Northern Spain look almost watery. Situated in the town of Ciro Marina on the coast of the Ionian sea, legend has it that wine has been produced in this town since Greek Philoctetes returned home here after the Trojan war. After the Greeks came the Romans, and eventually modernity, but there is something rustic and mysterious about this wine that makes it feel ancient, seductive even.
Like most Italian wine it pairs beautifully with Italian food: break out the antipasti and don’t shy away from hard cheeses and acidic or spicy tomato-based sauces – they will make this wine taste even better.
Crios Rosé of Malbec 2007
Mendoza, Argentina
Suggested retail: $10.99
The Crios Rosé of Malbec is a unique rosé experience. It is complex (like the Ciro Rosato) with sweet concentrated flavors, a velvety mouth-feel, and a long yet irrepressibly dry finish. Like many rosés it is produced in the Saignée method, meaning some of the pink juice is “bled” or removed from the vats during fermentation to intensify tannin, flavor, and color for the red Crios Malbec. The pink juice is fermented and imbued with a life of its own: as the rosé sister to the red Crios Malbec.
The Crios Rosé is extremely well balanced, a hallmark of all wine produced by exceptional Argentinean female wine-maker Susana Balbo under this label. The nose is full of warmth – clove, cinnamon, and ripe strawberry, like walking into the kitchen while a delicious rhubarb pie is baking in the oven. It is a deep almost purple-ish pink – my favorite hue of all the rosés that gave their lives in the making of this article.
The wine is delicious on it’s own, and big enough to take on complex food flavors. Serving both seafood and steak with your fancy summer dinner this evening? Pick up a bottle of the Crios – it’s a wine that can work the crowd.
Now go forth and drink pink! ‘Tis the season, after all.
Sounds delicious. I remember my first and favorite wine of the ’70’s – Mateus Rose. That’s from Portugal, right? In fact, my husband and I toasted our purchase of our beloved Highland Drive home by sharing a bottle.Think I’ll try to find a bottle just for old times sake along with one of your suggestions.