Taking a cue from last month’s column, I decided to stage my own group tasting. I chose rosé as the featured wine, bought nine of them and assembled members of my family around the giant wooden table built by my brother Phil. His wife, Lynn, their son, Karl and daughter-in-law Emily, my significant-other, Greg, and I, rounded out the group.
Why rosé? I think it’s interesting that the evolution of American rosé wines parallel the evolution of American taste buds. You remember the names from the ‘60s and ‘70s. Almaden, Paul Masson, Lancer’s and Mateus. Don’t forget Boone’s Farm and Riunite. Pink wines from our past. Sweet, cloying, maybe even “vapid, commercial mouthwash,” according to British wine writer Jancis Robinson. White zin took over in the 1980s. Better, but not much better. By the mid-80s, more than 120 California wineries were making a white zin, with Sutter Home leading the pack all the way into the present.
But along the way, Americans were slowly and steadily broadening their wine tasting experience. If you lived in or near a major metropolitan city, you couldn’t help but be curious about all the wine writing in the Food sections of your local newspaper. Varietal wines, French oak, California appellations, Bordeaux futures, Super Tuscans. The wine history timeline hit the gas pedal and we now have more wine styles, colors and flavors to choose from than ever before, including a multitude of delicious, thirst quenching rosé wines from all over the world. Don’t fall prey to “pink prejudice”! Rosés are back and they are better than ever!
Here are the wines we tasted with select tasting notes. I included the range of comments for each wine. In some cases, it’s hard to believe we were all tasting the same wines, but taste is, after all, an elusive, subjective commodity.
Our top three favorites, with unadulterated, sometimes baffling, comments from the group:
2004 Renwood California Syrah Rose $7-12
Dark ruby color, the darkest of the group. Candy, orange peel, sweet rubber, red raspberry, vanilla butter, grapey. Medium dry. Controversial, loved and hated. Look for the 2005 vintage, as it will be fresher tasting. Renwood changed this wine for the 2005 vintage, increasing the percentage of zinfandel and mourvedre grapes.
2005 Torre Quartro Guappo Rosato, Puglia, Italy $10-13
Crystal pink, watermelon and dark salmon color. Sweet and sour cherries, jammy, cinnamon, suntan lotion (sorry, that was me). Medium dry. Yes, this one was controversial, too. I think you East Coasters will find more of this wine as its production is limited and we don’t see much of it on the West Coast.
2004 La Tour du Prevôt Rosé, Provence, France $5
Orange pink, raspberry, slightly amber. Strawberry toast, smooth and earthy, salty, tomatoe-y. Dry. This is a Trader Joes special in a convenient screw top. The 2005 vintage is probably out now in some markets, so go with that when you see it.
And the rest:
2005 Fairview Winery “Goats Do Roam” Rosé, South Africa $8-10
Apparently roaming goats find the best fruit. Pink ruby in color. Dry. Buttery, strawberries and cream, herbal candy, barnyard. “Tastes like real wine,” said my nephew Karl. High praise for a rosé!
2005 Melipal Malbec Rosé, Mendoza, Argentina $10
Watermelon pink, light red. Dry. Strawberries, lemons, celery, charcoal, ashes, booze-y. Malbec is the big time red wine in Argentina, and as the country’s wine industry grows, we’ll see more of it.
2005 Toad Hollow Sonoma County Eye of the Toad Dry Pinot Noir Rosé $10
Delicate pink. Very dry. Strawberries and watermelon, lemons, minerals, “friendly with a bit of a zing.” (Perhaps you’ve been swallowing too much, Phil?)
2005 Marqués de Cáceres Rosé, Rioja, Spain $6-8
Pink lemonade in color. Medium dry. Minerals, earthy, grapefruit, celery, orange peel, bitter. Spain’s prolific tempranillo grape goes into this wine. Sold everywhere, with a screw top.
2004 Guigal Tavel, Provence, France $18
Lightest in color: apricot, salmon, foggy orange. Floral, yeasty, caramel, orange dirt, tobacco, yarf (don’t ask). Decidedly old world, traditional French, meaning very dry, earthy and not fruity. The production of Tavel dates back hundreds of years in the southern Rhone Valley of France.
2005 La Ferme Julien Rosé, Provence France $5
Liquid raspberry color. Medium dry. Floral, Koolaid, watermelon. Another Trader Joes special in a screw top.
Tasted any delicious rosés lately?
