Vaak krijg ik van vrienden en kennissen te horen dat ze van rose houden met een lichtrose kleur.
Dit weekend nog zei mijn vrouw toen we bij een strandtentje lagen: ‘Dat ziet er goed uit!’ Toen de ober met een fles rose kwam aanzetten die we net besteld hadden. Puur op basis van de kleur had ze al besloten dat hij lekker was. Ze proefde en knikte goedkeurend…
Ik keek haar een beetje raar aan, want ik ruik, gorgel en proef eerst 
.
Ik denk hieraan omdat ik laatst een leuk licht lezend boekje doorkliefd heb van Jamie Ivey: Extremely Pale Rose. Geen wijnerig hoogstandje, maar gewoon leuk.
Koop hem hier.
Wine ought to be fun, don’t you think? Instead we make it serious business. So serious, at times, that the fun is lost under the burden of ratings, ponderous tasting notes and can-you-top-this status seeking. Yet once you lose sight of the intrinsic simple pleasure of hoisting a glass and sipping with a good meal, then wine becomes a trapping, more important for what it connotes than for what it is.
That’s why I believe that people who really love wine have to love unpretentious wines — Beaujolais, barbera, muscadet, a rustic zinfandel. These are wines of pleasure, stripped of other meanings, for the most part. But let me not get too meta-analytical, here. The point is, you’re not a real baseball fan if all you enjoy are the homeruns. It’s the pitch-to-pitch battle that gives the game its beauty. You have to see it from all angles. You can’t just drink well-aged Bordeaux.
But can you only drink rosé? Extremely pale rosé at that? It would never occur to me, but maybe that’s why I don’t have a book out, and Jamie Ivey does. “Extremely Pale Rosé’’ (St. Martin’s Press, $22.95) is the story of Ivey and his wife, Tanya, who quit their jobs in London and head off to France with their eccentric friend Peter in search of the palest rosé in the land.
Why rosé? Who knows. Why the palest possible rose? Well, the motivation is to win a bet, or, more accurately, not to lose said bet. But honestly, it really doesn’t matter. As with rosé, the ultimate fun wine, reasons and rationale are not important. What counts is atmosphere, wit and of course amusing French people, without whom Peter Mayle, the Iveys and countless other British writers would still be slaving away at their day jobs..
The Iveys don’t know much about wine, though you can’t help suspecting they know a little more than they’re letting on. The conceit of pale rosé is pretty artificial. I’ve had rosés of every possible shade, and have rarely noticed any correlation between quality, weight, substance and color.
And yet, regardless of whether you buy the premise of the book, it’s great fun to read, especially if you enjoy sticking you nose into all sorts of little-known corners of France. Best of all, the Iveys never get bogged down in wine pretension. How ever little they know, they understand the most important thing: rosé is meant to be fun. They can’t help but enjoy themselves, and so will readers, who I daresay will be seeking out pale rosés themselves to drink under the sun.
In my column this Wednesday, I’m writing about another fun wine, prosecco. It’s one thing to understand that rosés or proseccos are unpretentious. It’s quite another to say that they are all the same. As with any wine, some producers are better than others. The Dining section’s wine panel tasted 25 proseccos, and we offer our 10 favorites. Let me know what you think of our choices.
Bron: Erik Asimov, The New York Times
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