Rose is a wine that typically generates sneers from wine snobs. Even white wine comes in for some denigration, so you can imagine how disrespectful some people can be about pink.
Once, during a very hot luncheon with a man who makes a rather high-alcohol chardonnay, the conversation drifted to rose. I asked him if he ever considered making one.
“Rose?” he virtually shrieked. “I can’t sell rose,” and he spat out the word as if it were an epithet. “No one can sell rose.”
He went on to describe the sickly sweet pink junk of the 1960s. I reminded him that winemaking has moved far ahead of those pathetic wines, and a string of terrific rose wines have been made in numerous places for the last decade or more. Such wines are perfect for brow cooling on a 100-degree afternoon, or when nighttime temperature declines to dip.
Made well, a dry rose can be a glorious meal-enhancer. It can parry flavors in many different sorts of dishes, it usually has lower alcohol than most reds, and its fruitiness is charming on a hot day when the wine is being used partially to cool off.
Dry rose paired with cold poached salmon, salads, Asian foods, or pork can be a real winner.
Today, those of us who love pink wines can get great examples from Spain, the south of France, California, and Australia.
However, some of the roses you will find are made rather clumsily. These usually are wines with a lot of alcohol because the winery chose to make a wine by a process called “saignee,” which in French means “to bleed.”
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