Wednesday, Jun. 25, 2008

Rosé in resurrection mode

By Dan Berger, Wine Press Northwest

If rosé were a human being, it would be reviled by the vast majority of wine lovers - and thus those who read this publication on a regular basis would be guffawing that a wine columnist would spend more than a millisecond chatting about this wretched bum with a sad and dejected look needing more than a shower and a nourishing meal.

We typically shun those who offend us, and that's pretty much all I see from wine lovers when it comes to rosé. "Pink?" they shriek, and walk a wide berth around the topic.

Sure, there were those sweet, tired, brown-rimmed excuses for wine we witnessed in the past. Terrible, they were. Lacking in freshness, dull and incoherent. A sad excuse for a wine.

And there were white Zinfandels, which were euphemistically referred to as "blush wines." The only justification for this was that those who made them were so embarrassed that they were constantly blushing, even while furtively going to the bank to deposit rather large checks.

So it's a special pleasure for me to announce that rosé of a fine order is now resurrected. It wears a new set of clothing (vibrant red color), speaks with a crisp and intelligent air (fresh fruit aromas) and has actually taken a paying job (working brilliantly with food).

Rosé can be a sad creature indeed, but it's under far better treatment than ever before. Dozens of wineries are making truly magnificent statements with the wine. And the public's response has been shockingly receptive, given the past indignities heaped upon its tired brow.

As a starter, we learn that 60 percent of the wine consumed in Spain these days is pink. We learn that Fetzer sold nearly 100,000 cases of a Syrah rosé to the United Kingdom last year and can't make enough of it to meet the demand. We hear that the most popular wine, for sampling and sales, in the tasting room at V. Sattui in the Napa Valley is a Gamay rosé whose average consumption time is about 5 minutes after purchase (at the winery's picnic tables).

Wineries have found out the same odd thing: The purists aren't the ones buying the vast majority of pink wines. It is the masses, and they are buying drier and drier rosés than most winemakers ever thought they would.

I could name dozens off the top of my head, including Miner Family's Sangiovese-based Rosato; Carol Shelton's Rendezvous Rosé (Mendocino Carignane); Robert Hall of Paso Robles, with a Rhône-based Rosé de Robles; Beckmen's stunning Grenache Rosé; Eberle's Syrah Rosé; and the Navarro Rosé (a blend of many things).

One of the best in the country is from the Northwest: Barnard Griffin's spectacular Rosé of Sangiovese, which won the sweepstakes award for rosé wines at this year's Riverside International Wine Competition in a close vote with Shelton's. Indeed, it is possible to argue with some justification that pink is the best color for Sangiovese to offer consumers, since red Sangiovese rarely achieves the sublime character that it exudes when grown in Tuscany.

The key to these newer (dry-styled) pink wines is the overt fruit they deliver, from strawberry and cherry to watermelon and tangerine. They can actually be a true, all-purpose wine for the diners at restaurants who order disparate foods.

Imagine this: A couple goes into a fine restaurant. He wants filet of sole, she wants prime rib. Ordinarily, he would have white and she red, but a bottle of pink solves the dilemma. A well-made rosé will have the oomph to go with the meat and the delicacy to work with lighter seafood dishes. The real problem is such a wine also works brilliantly with the wide array of flavors available on appetizer plates, so our imaginary couple may well finish the bottle before the food runs out!

Well, that dilemma is easily solved: Order another bottle. After all, it's not like the pink wine will be an albatross in terms of cost. The typical Chardonnay in a restaurant is about $35 to $40; two bottles runs $70 to $80, which may be more than a couple wants to pay for wine. But rosé wines rarely run more than $25 on wine lists, so two bottles is only $50.

Now some tips to getting good ones:

- Look at the alcohol. If it's above 14 percent, pass. In general, such wines were made by "bleeding" off a tank of red wine to make a rosé (so-called saignée). Red wines are harvested so late that a rosé made from the same material likely will not have the crispness and freshness that come in the best rosés.

- Watch the vintages. Anything older than 2005 is a risk, and with 2005s, think of them as light reds.

- Keep them chilled. A room-temp rosé can be unattractive.

- Pass on oak-aged pinks. I have rarely tasted a rosé that was better for aging in a new barrel. (Some "vin gris"-style wines, such as Sanford's Pinot-based wine, are exceptions.)

- Pass on malolactic pinks. Fresh fruit is the greatest asset of a rosé, and any rosé that went through malolactic will have had some of its fruit robbed from it.

- Do not pay a lot. Pink wine is instant wine. It needs no barrels, can be sold soon after the vintage and generally is tired within three years. At retail, the most I would pay for a rosé is about $25, and that's for the best.

It's trite, but think pink.

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