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 In the pink: Wine Press tasters enjoys a variety of carefully selected rosés |
Everything’s coming up rosé – about time too!
Rosé is back in vogue as the wine of choice for summer – though it may be a while before it makes an appearance at one of Hyacinth Bucket’s candlelit suppers
WE have waited and waited for the sun to come out, and finally we’ve decided that the sun may be waiting for us to come out with our summer wine column.
So here, hopefully better late then never, is our look at the summer wine scene.
Rosé wines, currently very à la mode, were until recently extremely passé.
Their golden age of popularity started after the Second World War and ended in the 1980s.
For 20 years a bottle of rosé has symbolised a lack of sophistication and culinary ignorance.
Had the unfortunate Emmet in the BBC sitcom Keeping Up Appearances been a little more wine savvy, he would – on debuting at her candlelight suppers – have presented Hyacinth Bucket with a bottle of rosé, thereby guaranteeing his permanent exclusion from her ostentatious festivities.
Recently, however, a new generation of London wine drinkers have begun to drift back towards rosé.
Perhaps hotter summers have forced red wine drinkers to search for something lighter or maybe it’s the work of the spinners from the marketing industry.
Sainsbury’s, who a few years ago stocked only a handful of rosés, now boast a range from all over the world, starting with a Spanish rosé table wine costing £2.56.
They also have an interesting white zinfandel from Israel’s Carmel winery.
For those who like to spend serious money on their wines, there’s always pink champagne, which is made by adding red wine to ordinary bubbly. Waitrose have Moët & Chandon Rosé Brut Impérial (75cl) £31.99.
As this seems a ridiculous price to pay for diluted champagne, a better buy is their Blason Crémant de Bourgogne Rosé (75cl) £8.99 – a bottle of bubbly made the champagne way, from a champagne grape (pinot noir) with 10 per cent gamay, grown on land just to the south of the champagne region. A pink champagne in all but name.
Rosé is made from red grapes. Squeeze a red grape and white juice comes out. The flesh, too, is white.
Red wine gets its colour from the pigments in the skins of black grapes.
In the early stages of red wine fermentation, the colour at first is a light pink, which darkens the longer the skin and flesh remain in contact. Remove the skins at an early stage and, voila, rosé!
Putting our faith in the power of positive thinking, we ignored the unrelenting torrential rain and on Sunday we summoned our wine panel to an outdoor summer wine tasting.
The sun shone all day.
Marinated swordfish, fantastic lamb and vegetable kebabs from Phoenicia in Kentish Town Road, backed up with sausages, steaks and homemade coleslaw and salads put our tasters in the right frame of mind.
Not for the first time our panel divided along gender lines, the women favouring the sweet tasting Gallo family – White Zinfandel 75cl 2006, California USA, £4.99 from Costcutter and many other stores.
The guys divided their preference between the drier and, in our opinion, better-structured Nicolas, Cotes de Provence (75cl, 2006, £6.19 from French wine chain Nicolas) and Chateau Bauduc Merlot, Rosé (2005, France, £6.35. www.bauduc.com).
Old prejudices linger on and there is a still a stigma attached to rosé wines.
Modern, high tech wine production ensures rosé wines are as well made as the other wines on sale in the supermarkets.
The main requirement is that the wine should be young and fresh and, as the price of potatoes is about to rocket, cheaper than chips.
A good alternative to rosé is heavily chilled light red wines such as gamay and even light fruity pinot noirs. They make excellent, refreshing summer drinks. |
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