May 2008

Introduction

This Featured Monthly Tasting Report focuses on rosés. In the hot summer months rosé wines offer a welcome respite from big red wines and serious whites. Today almost every wine-producing country makes respectable rosé. Southern France is the home of the most famous rosés—Tavel, Cotes de Provence, Bandol, and Cotes du Rhone. However, Spain and Italy, and even Greece and Austria, produce some amazingly good rosés from indigenous grape varieties. In the New World, Australia, Argentina, South Africa and the U.S. also produce terrific rosés, many of which fall in the fruit forward and slightly sweet style. In the U.S market, fruity and sweet rosé wines were about the only ones available until about five years ago. Today, the wine enthusiast will find a great variety of rosé wines to enjoy.

For this report, we tasted through more than 85 dry and off-dry rosés from around the world, excluding rosé champagne which we covered in our Report # 9 Champagne (December 2007) The wines in the tasting take on a myriad of guises, consisting of different grape varieties terroir, and winemaking techniques. The grape varieties include: Agiorqitiko, Cabernet Franc, Cabernet Sauvignon, Cinsault, Gamay, Grenache, Malbec, Mourvèdre, Pinot Noir, Syrah, Tempranillo, and Zweigelt. These wines are sourced from high yielding commercial vineyards to low yielding small parcels reflecting a variety of soils and climates. And, the wines are produced using two main techniques: skin contact and saignée; both produce excellent wines, combining attributes of both red and white wines. These rosé winemaking techniques are fully described in this month’s education section of the i-WineReview website. Click here

Most rosés are fruity, yet can be off dry or dry on the mid-palate and on the finish. There is a prevalence of fruity and off dry rosés on the market. But there are dry versions of fruit forward wines, and some of these wines also have interesting mineral or herbal/savory notes for added complexity. These two main styles are summarized below

Off-dry

These wines display attractive rosé colors and are often aromatic and sweet on the mid-palate and the finish. They generally reveal strawberry and cherry fruit on the nose and palate and offer an uncomplicated flavor profile with good acidity and freshness. They are usually inexpensive and when done well and served well-chilled, they provide a pleasant, enjoyable drink. Some off-dry rosés with high levels of residual sugar can be cloying. This fruit forward and off-dry style is common in New World wines from California, South America and Australia. Some off-dry rosés are also being made in France and Spain, targeted in part to the U.S market.

Dry

These rosés display a wide variety of colors, ranging from pale salmon to deep rose. While some offer red fruit aromas of fresh cherry, raspberry, and pommegrante, others are much more subtle aromatically. In addition to their fruit, some French wines, especially from Chinon, Bandol and Tavel display interesting herbal notes (eg. garrigue) and/or minerality and are bone dry on the finish. In general, dry rosés are more complex on the nose and palate than the fruit forward off dry style wines. They are often more expensive as well. Complex, dry rosé wines are mainly European in origin.

The Tasting

There were many well made wines in our tasting from virtually every country. Quality is clearly on the rise. Still there are many wines of only average quality and in the tasting several did not even make our minimum grade of 85 points and are thus not included. The best wines in our view were those that offered fresh fruit aromas, complex flavors and good acidity; they also revealed a sense of place, often with subtle minerality, herbal notes and long lasting flavors. Here is a short list of just some of the highly rated wines from our tasting; many other fine wines are included in our tasting report: continue (subscribers only) >>

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