Rosé wordt serieus

Rosé wordt steeds serieuzer. De meeste mensen zien zichzelf niet als rose drinker, maar de wijnen worden steeds beter.

In Amerika is het nu ook erg hot om ze Pink Wine te noemen. Klinkt wat stoerder vind ik zelf.

Jim Gordon heeft er 33 geproefd en geeft zijn conclusies. Kortom: hij is erg enthousiast over de kwaliteit.

Tasting Report: Rosé Gets Serious
California’s trendy warm-weather wine is redder than ever
Bron: Jim Gordon

Summer is the perfect time to drink one of California’s new dry rosé wines. They’re fresh, they’re cold, they’re thirst quenching, and they go with everything from ceviche to caesar salad to steak tartare. After blind-tasting 33 of them for this article I am not only reminded that they make great summer drinking, but I am more convinced than ever that rosé has become a serious wine type that people should consider along with red and white.

Rosé, of course, means pink in French, and the new trend in America is to call rosé a pink wine. Unfortunately, that’s happening at the same time that rosé has turned redder than ever. Not only in color, which runs from a salmon or coral hue to a brilliant raspberry red, but in aroma, flavor, and body. Red wines usually have more complexity, more heft and texture than white, and these rosés do, too. They’re made from red grape varieties, after all.

After trying one or two and liking the dazzling colors and tangy, overtly fruity flavors you’ll start imagining what dishes make good matches. With a Pinot Noir rosé it could be English pea soup with crab, or Black Forest ham and Gruyere cheese, says Joy Sterling of Iron Horse Vineyards in Sonoma County, who made two of the top wines in the tasting. With a Syrah rosé, some great pairings include a traditional Italian antipasto salad, spicy shrimp and duck salad, she says.

“Most people don’t consider themselves rosé drinkers,” says Allison Steltzner of Napa Valley, who released her family’s first rosé this spring. That’s because rosé used to mean something sweet or something simple like white Zinfandel, not a grown-up dry wine. “But when you get them to try it, especially with my favorite match of barbecued ribs, our wine appeals to a broad spectrum of the public.”

There is no stronger advocate for rosé than Jeff Morgan, co-owner of Solo Rosa Wines, based in Napa Valley. He has even written a book about it, Rosé, A Guide to the World’s Most Versatile Wine (Chronicle Books). Solo Rosa makes only rosé, as the name declares. Morgan and his partner, winemaker Daniel Moore, made their debut with one rosé in the 2001 vintage and this year added two new styles of dry rosé in small quantities and with a higher price reflecting higher flavor aspirations – a Syrah rosé using grapes from the Russian River Valley of Sonoma and a Sangiovese from Napa’s Atlas Peak. All three made my top 10. (They also make a small quantity of a sweet dessert-style rosé.)

Rosé becomes respectable

“Rosé in the last five years has actually become quite respectable,” says Morgan. “The change has been extraordinary. The public, retailers and restaurants have accepted it as a legitimate category for serious wine lovers. The word is out. Everybody’s making it, everybody’s selling it, and a lot of people are drinking it.” Morgan and Paige Poulos Communications were instrumental in starting a rosé fan club, Rose Advocates & Producers (RAP), that has more information about the wine on its website, www.rapwine.com. RAP will sponsor a “Pink Out” wine tasting July 17 in San Francisco.

Solo Rosa subscribes to the philosophy that rosé is a serious wine, says Morgan. “It’s serious fun, but also serious complexity. Put the effort into finding the right grapes and the right cellar techniques and you can come up with a wine that’s quite extraordinary.”

Extraordinary is a good word for the two new Solo Rosa wines, which are priced at $28, one dollar higher than the next most expensive California rosé I tasted, Tablas Creek from Paso Robles, which is also excellent. At about the same price as an average Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon you can buy one of the very best wines of an exciting new type.

For many rosé makers, the right technique is to use juice from red wine grapes, but separate the juice from the skins before it starts fermenting. Red wines get their color from the grape skins over a period of a week or more, so drawing off or “bleeding” some of the juice early results in a lighter red color but with enough flavor from the skins to still make a substantive wine.

It’s not a coincidence that this technique for rosé making, where a tank is bled (in French, saignee, pronounced san-yay), caught on in California when winemakers were trying to buff up their red wines. Bleeding can improve the concentration and color in red wine that will be made from the juice left behind with all the skins. And when the saignee juice goes to a rosé, then both wines benefit. The process may sound a bit cheap, as if they’re using unwanted juice. But it’s essentially the same as using what’s called free-run juice at the time of pressing, which is nearly always a positive.

In barrels or tanks?

Most wineries ferment the juice for rosé in stainless steel tanks like they do with crisp white wines such as Sauvignon Blanc or Pinot Grigio. This technique worked beautifully for the first release of Allison Dry Rosé of Syrah from Steltzner Vineyards. It’s the brainchild of Allison Steltzner, who says that she wanted to get the “essence of the Syrah grape” into the wine.

But Solo Rosa, Saintsbury in Carneros, Sanford in Santa Barbara, and a few others pump the juice into oak barrels to ferment, and sometimes they also age the wine for a few months in barrels.

You rarely taste the oak flavors as you might in a barrel-aged Chardonnay because winemakers like to use older, neutral tasting barrels for rosé. The barrels do allow contact of the lees with the new wine, which can add complexity, and time spent in barrels also tends to broaden or thicken the mouth feel of a wine.

Winemakers use a broad spectrum of grape varieties to make California rosé, but they do differ in taste and style. I tasted the rosés for this article blind, but sorted into categories by grape varieties. I tended to like the rosés made from Rhone varieties the most, closely followed by Sangiovese, and then by Pinot Noir and other varieties.

Rhone varieties make strong, assertive red wines, so why wouldn’t they do the same in a lighter style with rosé? Sangiovese red wines from Tuscany have plenty of fruit, spice and tangy backbone, and the rosé versions do, too. Pinot Noir makes a quieter California rosé, usually lighter in color, but this makes sense considering the more elegant nature of red wines made from Pinot.

Countless food pairings

Rosé in general is the most food-friendly wine I know. I’ve enjoyed it with sushi, with spicy Thai food, with Spanish tapas of all types, with just about every type of seafood, with chicken, pizza and roast pork tenderloin. Rosé is bottled just a few months after the harvest, so it is young and fresh tasting. Many of them are totally dry, and their pure fruitiness and acidity balances against spiciness and strong flavors, but some do have residual sugar of about half a percent that also helps moderate bold food.

Pat Henderson, senior winemaker at Kenwood Vineyards in Sonoma County, says he loves Pinot Noir with salmon, and recently found a good match between his rosé of Pinot Noir and chilled salmon mousse. But the food doesn’t need to be exotic, and since rosé is relatively affordable you can enjoy it on non-occasions, too. Henderson says this spring he roasted a whole chicken on his covered grill, rubbed with garlic and rosemary, and it made a “fantastic” match with his rosé.

When shopping for rosé, pick the most recent vintage (currently 2005). Make sure not to choose bottles that have been sitting under strong light from a store window. All wine suffers under these conditions, but rosé in a crystal clear bottle is more susceptible to light damage.

Before serving rosé, chill it. Put the bottles in the refrigerator for at least an hour. After uncorking or unscrewing them, keep the bottles in an ice bucket if you’ll be out in hot weather. The best rosé wines will be fine if they warm up to cellar temperature of 55 degrees, but most will taste flat at room temperature or above.

Top-Rated Rosés
These were our favorite wines in a blind tasting of 33 rosés from all over California
RHONE VARIETIES

The Southern Rhone Valley of France and neighboring Provence have a long tradition of making rosé wines from what we call Rhone grape varieties. These include Syrah, Grenache, Mourvedre, and Carignane. In California they tend to make the most assertive, complex and full-bodied rosés.

Solo Rosa Russian River Valley Syrah Rosé 2005
Wow. A really flavorful, distinctive rosé that’s practically a red wine for all its raspberry and cherry flavors, full texture and lingering, concentrated finish. Should be great with grilled salmon, tuna tartare and sushi. $28, 200 cases. 93 points

Carol Shelton Mendocino County Rendezvous Rosé 2005
Flavorful enough to last through the whole meal. Slight salmon hue to the deep pink color. This gushes with herb and citrus flavors, refreshes with crisp acidity and lingers on the finish with substantial cherry-berry flavors. (Carignane grapes.) $15, 296 cases. 91 points

Steltzner Contra Costa County Allison Rosé of Syrah 2005
Subtle red wine flavors and a hefty texture make for a weighty rosé that’s more than an aperitif. Imagine this with grilled scallops or spicy Sichuan beef or barbecued ribs. $18, 750 cases. 90 points

Roselle Mendocino County Thornhill Vineyard Syrah Rosé 2005
Light and lively, fresh and appetizing. Salmon-pink color, vibrant raspberry and thyme aromas, crisp raspberry and cherry flavors. Maybe prosciutto-wrapped melon? $11, 1,650 cases. 89 points

Tablas Creek Paso Robles Estate Rosé 2005
Broad, ripe style, very flavorful and big. Deep cherry color, sweet strawberry aromas, soft and full in texture, carrying cherry and strawberry flavors through to the finish. (60 % Mourvedre.) $27, 700 cases. 89 points

Ortman Paso Robles Syrah Rosé 2005
Bright, fresh and vividly fruity, like cherry and rasberry jam but without the sugar. It feels medium-bodied, tastes concentrated and pure. $16, 520 cases. 88 points

Red Zeppelin Paso Robles Pink Zeppelin 2005
Light and refreshing. Delicious watermelon aromas and flavors are backed by nice citruslike notes and a lingering finish in this salmon-pink rendition. (Syrah grapes.) $12, 395. 88 points

SANGIOVESE

Sangiovese (pronounced san-jo-vay-zeh) is the main red-wine grape of Chianti and Tuscany. It has been catching on slowly in California for red wines, but makes a really vivid, arresting rosé that doesn’t get too heavy in the hands of inspired winemakers like these.

Solo Rosa Napa Valley Sangiovese Rosé 2005
Depth, concentration and great balance combine for something more than refreshment. Has the flavor complexity of a red wine with the lively texture of a white. Subtle pepper and plum aromas, vivid raspberry flavors and a lingering spicy finish. $28, 200 cases. 92 points

Iron Horse Rosé Alexander Valley T Bar T Vineyard Rosato di Sangiovese 2005
Just a vivid, lively wine from start to finish that keeps you coming back for more. Bright citrus aromas, ripe raspberry and cherry flavors, vibrant balance. $12, 2,238 cases. 91 points

Kuleto Estate Napa Valley Rosato di Sangiovese 2004
Lively and vibrant, with hearty flavors for a rose. Medium-bodied, with plenty of cherry and raspberry notes accented by earthy, meaty undertones. Great with the grill. $15, 324 cases. 89 points

Miner Mendocino Rosato 2005
A smooth, rather full-bodied rose filled out with fresh, generous cherry-berry flavors. Bright light red in color, vividly fruity in aroma. $15, 1,229. 88 points

PINOT NOIR

Pinot Noir, one of the most elegant, lighter bodied red wine grapes, comes from the Burgundy region of France where a few winemakers still use it to create rosé or what they call vin gris (“gray wine,” meaning not dark and not white). These California rosés tend to be lighter in color and body, and play a great supporting role in a meal.

Iron Horse Sonoma County Green Valley Rosé de Pinot Noir 2005
Packs more flavor than its light pink color would suggest. Fresh aromas of strawberry and cherry jam, lively citruslike flavors and a generous texture. Long finish, too. $15, 677 cases. 90 points

Kenwood Russian River Valley Pinot Noir Rosé 2005
Has the spicy aromas and lush texture of a Pinot Noir, but with lighter flavors and a light orange-pink color. Should be great with rich fish and shellfish. $15, 2,900 cases. 89 points

Saintsbury Carneros Vincent Vin Gris Vin Gris of Pinot Noir 2005
Easy to like this sleek and tasty rosé. It layers light but ripe strawberry and cherry flavors over a rich texture. $13, 1,031 cases. 89 points

Cuvaison Napa Valley Carneros Vin Gris of Pinot Noir 2005
Light, smooth and sophisticated. Delicate cherry and raspberry flavors, light body and enough crisp acidity to keep it lively. $16. 88 points

Sanford Santa Barbara County Santa Rita Hills Pinot Noir-Vin Gris 2005
An unusually smooth, barrel-fermented and barrel-aged rose that combines fresh cherry and peach flavors with a posh texture and lingering finish. $14. 88 points.

OTHER VARIETIES

Most wine regions of the world have made some kind of rosé with their traditional red-wine grapes, and for each one there is at least one California winemaker to emulate them. Here are a few excellent examples. Tempranillo comes from Spain and Merlot from Bordeaux.

Solo Rosa California 2005
Complex and intriguing flavors mark this orange-pink colored wine. There’s something wild in the plummy, meaty, earthy character, and it all comes together on the finish with fruit and vibrancy. (Sangiovese and Merlot grapes.) $15, 2,000 cases. 90 points

Coral Mustang Paso Robles Tempranillo Rosé 2005
A compelling and complete rose. Orange-pink color, vibrant citrus and raspberry aromas and flavors, and vivid acidity to keep it fresh and lively. $21, 250 cases. 89 points

Rutherford Hill Napa Valley Rosé of Merlot 2005
Fun, lively, and light. Combines a shocking pink color, ripe raspberry and cherry flavors, and a tangy, refreshing texture and finish. $19, limited. 89 points

Pedroncelli Sonoma County Dry Creek Valley Zinfandel Rosé 2005
Tempting wine that’s bright and flavorful. Assertive in style, with fresh cherry and plum flavors, crisp acidity and a sense of roundness and weight. Very good value, too. $10, 3,000 cases. 88 points

Van Ruiten Lodi Rosé of Cab-Shiraz 2004
Good and different. Light orange-pink in color, white pepper and cantaloupe aromas, a rather full texture and mellow plum and cherry flavors. $12, 1,350 cases. 88 points

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