This popular crash course was an epilogue to the session of the same name at Wine Riot! back in April. Now that we’re in the full swing of rosé season, we felt it appropriate to return to the pink stuff that’s perfect for porch sipping.

A favorite of wine enthusiasts around the globe, rosé is light, crisp, and pink! Ranging in hue from light pink to deep red, this is one of the world’s most misunderstood wines. To begin with, rosé is NOT the sticky, sweet white zinfandel you see in a box, nor the blush wine you see in a jug. A lot of people are hesitant to even approach rosé, thinking it’s going to be like it’s pink counterparts.

While some rosés do have incredibly bright fruit flavors of raspberry and strawberries, others are deep in color and drink more like a red wine. Soaking grape skins in the juice during the fermentation process is what gives red wine its color and tannin. Rosés are made the same way, but only instead of soaking the skins for months, they are only in contact with the juice for hours, giving the wine a bit more body and structure than a white. While the process was made most famous in the south of France, rosé wines are made in every major wine region in the world.

We tasted an array of the stuff, starting with lighter summer sippers, leading up to more robust and darker colored wines. Rosés are perfect for solo sipping, or to pair with lighter options like goat cheese, salad, or grilled chicken.

	2008 Triennes Rosé Provence, France – $13.99
	A light colored, crisp rosé, this wine was a favorite of the crowd. “Real men can and WILL drink pink!” was the reverberating phrase throughout the night, not only from Jeff but Tyler as well. Both are resident rosé fans, and can agree that this wine is perfect for porch/roofdeck/stoop sipping. Just get outside and drink it!
	2007 Domaine de Fontsaine Gris de Gris Corbières, France - $15.99
	Downtown’s Wine of the Week! From the Loire Valley, this rosé is quite unique. It’s made from pinot gris– a white grape! Smooth and light with a taste of berries on the finish, this is a wine to have glass after glass of.
	2008 JM Raffault Rosé Chinon, France – $15.99
	Also from the Loire, this wine was more robust than the previous rosés. With a vegetal and minerality to it, it’s a crisp alternative to a New Zealand sauvignon blanc. Drink with seafood!
	2008 Vitiano Rosato Umbria, Italy
	This wine is noticeably darker than the previous rosés. Stepping up to the plate and starting to play rosé hardball, this wine is easy to drink and has notes of dark cherry and vanilla for a smooth and pleasant finish.
	2008 Castello di Ama Rosato Gaiole, Italy – $15.99
	This wine was also a hit with the crowd. Reviewed in Wine Spectator recently, there’s been a surge of interest in this particular rosé. However, it sold out from suppliers in February! Too bad for the late comers, great news for all the locals! Downtown’s got some stock left and stands behind it being a killer rosé.
	2007 Yorkville Cellars Rosé de Franc Mendocino County, California – $14.99
	The last rosé of the night, this wine was the overall favorite of the crowd. Dark, robust and packed with stone fruit flavors, Jeff refers to it as a “juicebox” wine. Clearly, it’s ideal for sipping on all night (or summer) long, and is organically produced. What’s not to love?

All wines are available at Downtown Wine & Spirits in Davis Square.

Crash Course Wine Seminars are back after the Riot! and they’re better than ever. It’s summertime in Boston and we have a whole new slew of courses coming up designed to turn you and your friends into wine badasses.

As usual, our goal is to empower you, the drinker, with more knowledge about wine by way of expert education and tasty sips. We are working with Boston’s top names in wine to bring and fun, informative and most importantly, completely unpretentious wine class. All Crash Courses are $10 a person, and include 4-6 different wines to taste and a whole lot of expert knowledge.

Get Your Learn On

Jeff Golden, Wine Buyer and all around rockstar at Downtown Wine & Spirits, along with experienced Second Glass Staffers, will bust knowledge and pour glasses of great vino.

Where: Downtown Wine & Spirits [225 Elm St, Somerville, MA]

When: Wednesday, July 8th from 7-8pm

Cost: $10

Located on the Eastern border of France, the Alsace region is Germany’s French mistress. Between the 19th and 20th centuries, it changed hands between the two countries 75 times– phew! We’re pretty sure it’s through its identity crisis, but the wines of Alsace show a clear loyalty to both countries. With the crisp feel of classic French whites, and the sweetness of German rieslings, these wines represent great aspects of both countries Alsace has called home. Hop across the border and back, in tasting gems from this region and the countries it sleeps between!

It finally happened– the much hyped, inevitable, AWESOME Sherry Crash Course. Downtown’s resident sherry enthusiast and wine buyer, Jeff Golden, hosted the evening, with assistance from Tyler Balliet. Sherry is one of those wines that not too many people even know is wine. Sherry’s strong presence in cooking and the made famous sweet cream sherry give the stuff a bad rap, and we tasted through a large array of sherry to really understand what is it, where it comes from, and what it tastes like!

Sherry comes from Spain, where winemaking goes back to essentially the beginning of time. Starting in the 14th century, the Spanish began to export their wine, and preservation became the key. Thus, sherry was born. To be legally deemed sherrry, production must come from the Cadiz province of Spain, and most of it from Jerez. There is a rough series of sherries, ranging from light (Fino) to heavier (Oloroso), made primarily from Palomino or Pedro Ximenez grapes. Sherry is meant to be drank with food– it screams for pairing. We tasted these sherries with Manchengo (for the Finos and Amontillados), and Roquefort (for the Olorosos and Alvear Solera) cheeses, marcona almonds, green olives and salty spanish ham. Jeff explained that one reason why sherry is so misunderstood in this country is because sherry “goes against everything Americans do with drinking”, since it should never be far from food.

Sherry production begins the same as any other wine; grapes are grown and picked from vineyards, crushed and transferred to barrels. It’s in the barrel that the wine goes from regular table wine to sherry. The wine develops yeast on top of it that matures it and leads to fortification. A standard California wine will take about 3-4 days to fortify, sherry takes that many weeks, thus the higher concentration of alcohol. Sherry is then moved through barrels that lead to levels of classification. No sherries have vintages, as its a three year process to make sherry. The wine is moved from barrel to barrel, each time a little left behind, and added to the next, to make the wine come together.

	Lustau Light Fino Jarana – $21.99
	This food-friendly sherry is light and has a very nutty flavor. Made from palomino grapes, this Fino was a great introduction to how sherry is made. Sherry is a fortified wine, aged in barrels under a layer of yeast called flor. The flor keeps the sherry from getting too sweet, because once the yeast is killed off, the wine will begin to sweeten, as Tyler likes to say, “Yeast eats sugar and poops alcohol”.
	Alvear’s Fino Montilla – $16.99
	This is a “lighter morning sherry”, and a prime example of Pedro Ximenez not being sweet, as can typically be seen in sherries. Palomino grapes have a harder time growing in Alvear’s region, and thus the use of PX in sherry. Sherries used to be made from many other varietals, but as is the same with many wine issues from the turn of the century, the phylloxera destroyed essentially all other sherry-making grapes.
	Manzanilla La Guita – $11.99
	Still a fino, the Manzanilla is a bit darker in the glass than the previous two. It’s also a touch nuttier, tasting wonderfully with the manchengo cheese, marcona almonds and salty ham we had out to taste with. It’s also a bit more round than the previous finos, which can be more sharp due to the higher alcohol. It’s with this wine we learned about oxidation, and the name of the game with sherry is just that. A sherry’s development and character are all determined by how much the oxygen gets to hang out with the wine. It’s due to the flor that this wine has such a rich caramelized flavor.
	Lustau Dry Amontillado Los Arcos – $18.99
	This dry, classically styled Amontillado is noticeably darker than the previous sherries. It’s a prime example, Jeff informed us, of what you can do with Palomino. About 40 percent of the way through the aging process, the flor dies and the wine begins to develop the richness oxidation provides. Drink this sherry with salty ham or olives– it’s not meant to pair with anything sweet!
	Alvear Carlos VII Amontillado – $29.99
	Named for the Spanish King Carlos VII, this is the best Amontillado Alvear makes. The entire category was named for this sherry. Like all the Alvear sherries we tasted, this sherry is made from PX, and remains dry– similar to German wine. Amontillados tend to smell sweeter than they taste, the reason being you’re experiencing different parts of the aging process. We found this Amontillado to be more acidic than the previous, with earthy undertones.
	Lustau Dry Oloroso Don Nuno – $28.99
	The next category of sherry we dove into was Oloroso. Early on in the process, the very best fruit & wine go to Fino production, where there is nowhere for the flavors to hide. Fino is so straightforward and light that there must be youthful fruit for it to be compelling. That being said, Oloroso doesn’t start out as anything too special, but through the aging process it comes into its own. This sherry should be drank alongside grilled meat, or sharp cheeses such as bleu or chevre. Its dry makeup makes it a good “morning sherry” that “proper Spanish gentlemen would have a glass of before going to review the fields”.
	Alvear Solera 1927 PX – $27.99
	For our Grand Finale- The Pancake Sherry. Well, according to Tyler. But in all seriousness, this sherry was the group favorite, and is amazing. Solera style sherry making means that this particular sherry started its aging cycle in 1927. This is the oldest form of wine production in the Cadiz region. This wine is 100% PX and begins to be fortified much earlier than Fino or Amontillado to preserve some of the residual sugar. The result is a sweet, syrupy sherry that is quite tasty on its own, or would taste wonderful atop ice cream, or in Tyler’s case, pancakes. The wine holds flavors of sweet, caramelized honey, brined olives, and raisins. For the price point, Jeff explained, you will not find a wine so complex as this one. With sherry, the winemaking process embraces what oxygen does to white wine, and the result is delicious.

All sherries are available at Downtown Wine & Spirits in Davis Square.