Weekend wine with Blake Creedon
There’s no better accompaniment to that feeling of warm sunshine on your skin than a glass of rosé wine. Of course you can drink pink any time of year — but it just feels so right on those long warm summer evenings.
The pink sector of the market is dominated by just one style — sweetish Californian blush zinfandel. Consumed in great quantities and represented by a handful of big brand names, blush is often derided as being no better than pop by many wine fans.
But really there’s nothing wrong with that style of wine — for my money, Gallo Family Vineyards White Zinfandel was the best of the bunch at the recent Wines of California tasting. I do have one quibble about those big brands though: generally priced at around a tenner they’re a bit too dear for what you’re getting.
Rosé reflects the wobbly link between price and quality in all wine.
Those big brands command a premium of a couple of bucks per bottle by ubiquity, reliability, advertising and subtler marketing. Similarly, individual pinks may be talked up by the people who sell them.
The best rosé example of this is Domain Ott. Worth more than €30? I think not.
Then there’s what I call appellation aftertaste — wine regions which used to be a unique source of a particular wine style, whose products still command high reputation and prices, but which have long been eclipsed by other regions in Europe and beyond. Champagne is the obvious example.
In terms of rosé, the best example is Tavel in the south of France — rightly honoured for its plump dry rosé. But they’ve been emulated and arguably bested by good and more affordable rosés from elsewhere.
n Today’s highlights come from two stores which have excelled rosé: M&S and O’Briens (www.obrienswines.ie).
There are further commendable rosé wines on my blog at blakecreedon.wordpress.com. Now bring on the sunshine. Please.
“Zinfandel rosé” is almost always Californian, but here’s the grape back at home in south eastern Italy (just across the Adriatic from its birthplace in Croatia). It’s lovely crisp, spicy and, at that price, a surprisingly grown-up rich savoury palate. Bargain of the week.
One of the great hunting grounds for rosés is in the south of France — Languedoc on the left, Provence on the right, and the Rhone which runs right down the middle between them. This one is from the highly reputed Chusclan co-op, a lovely fragrant blend of typical local grapes plus merlot.
This, the pink cousin of M&S’s Moscatel de Valencia, is unctuously sweet. It also stands out from most rosés in that its primary scents are honey-floral rather than ripe red fruit. Too much? Maybe. But on a really hot day it could be a lovely headily-scented glassful. And only a moderate 10% alcohol.
Don’t let the colour deceive: this is the palest of O’Briens’ line-up, but it’s actually a well-weighted, taut fruity syrah grenache with the accent on strawberries. l’Ostal Cazes is new venture for a famous name from Bordeaux (Lynch-Bages) in the highly regarded Languedoc region of Minervois.
I wouldn’t put you off any of the others, but if I had to pick only one of today’s rosés it’d be this — in part I suppose because with its substantial body it’s the most like a red and so was flattered by comparison at the tasting. But it’s a still terrifically well made glass of wine, and the three-for-two deal brings it down to a tenner a bottle.
Surprisingly, given how common off-dry rosés are (or used to be), this lovely Loire cabernet franc was the only sweetish wine in O’Briens’ selection. And no, that doesn’t mean it’s in any way dumbed down: Attractively alert and crisp.
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