It’s
a hot summer day, and you’re enjoying a well deserved vacation. The
sun is shining, there’s a light breeze blowing in off the Mediterranean.
It’s lunchtime, so you take a table outside a small café and
wonder what you should drink. Looking around you, you notice that at every
table everyone is drinking… Rosé!
Rosé wines, dry, not sweet, are the “official” casual
warm weather quaffs in winemaking countries all over the world… including,
more and more, the United States. Crisp, aromatic, lively and flavorful,
a cool glass of rosé goes with almost any of the foods we love
to eat in summer: salads, sandwiches, cold cuts, a cold roasted chicken,
fish, shrimp. It’s the wine to take along on a picnic, and the wine
that can make any meal eaten with it seem like it is a picnic!
Rosé wines are made in several ways. Usually, red grapes are pressed
and their skins, which contain the pigment that gives the wine color,
is allowed to soak in the juice before fermentation begins. This had the
added benefit of allowing some tannins (found in the skins, seeds and
stems of grapes) to also be absorbed into the juice. Tannins, natural
preservatives, help to give wines balance, and prevent oxidation. The
process of converting animal skins into leather is called tanning because
it uses tannins to remove traces of fat and blood from the skins. Because
red wine are made by fermenting the juice of the grapes along with the
skins, they are higher in tannins than white wines, and are better matches
with red meats. Rosé wines, having more tannins than white wines,
will compliment lighter meats, or even cold roast beef.
Some Rosés are made by adding a bit of red wine to white. Most
of the rosé Champagne on the market is made this way.
So, what about “blush wines”, like White Zinfandel? In spite
of what the marketing departments say, these are rosé wines, made
from the Zinfandel grape, a red varietal. It’s just a simpler tasting,
sweeter version of the real thing.
If you would like to learn more about these delicious, re-freshing rosé
wines, please join us on Saturday, May 20, between 2 and 6 PM for our
Annual Rosé Festival. You’ll have a chance to taste Rosé
wines from around the world, and all of our rosé wines will be
10% off, 15% on a case of twelve… and yes, you can mix and match them
for your discount!