The summer is drawing to a close. As we hang onto the last warm evenings now mingled with some cool-ness we rush to determine which have been the greatest Rosés of our Summer 2007 Festival of the Pank. Here are a few candidates recently compared.
2006 Cotes de Provence Chateau du Rouet Cuvee Reserve Tradition $12: Good wine to start the evening. Orange copper color. Dry with strawberries in mouth. Easy drinker without much finish. 60% Grenache 40% syrah. 12.5%.
2005 L’Uvaggio di Giacomo Lodi Il Gufo Babera Rosato $11: Jim Moore’s almost beefy rosé is almost like something else – syrup! It is not thick enough for waffles but it might make a great cosmo! A manly rosé for all manly men (and stout women I suppose). This deep red, near-purple wine goes with BBQ as easily as it goes with a fruit cup. 12.5% alcohol. Bravo Jim!
2006 Nicodemi Montepulciano d’Abruzzo Gerasuolo $13: Another bigger than usual rosé, bright deep red color (without blue tones above), rich dry flavors. My first Tuscan rosé was a hit. Both of these wines deliver a kick in the cajones to the pink wine naysayers who complain about rosé simplicity. From North Berkeley Wines. 12.5%.
Time out for an observation (bitch-pitch). “Serious” wine drinkers who complain that rosé cannot be taken “seriously” because it is too simple ("not serious") cannot be serious themselves can they? To them I say…what about the legions of over-oaked and over-ripe cabs and chardonnays considered serious? Are these wines not simple in their own stupidly complicated, out of whack (i.e., unbalanced) ways? Puhleeeze.
Think Rubiks' Cube and "Rube Goldberg". The Rube Goldberg machine takes something simple and makes it ridiculously complicated. "Serious" wines? Rubik's Cube takes something simple (block of colors) and makes it quite complicated. That is serious simplicity. Simple and serious are rarely antonyms.
2005 Verget de Sud Rosé de Syrah $15: A second appearance this summer and if it is up to me this wine will make a 3rd and 4th. Here is what my wife said as she sipped in the spa. “What I like about this wine is that it is dry and still has the hint of strawberries but not sweet”. And I always agree with my wife. In the salmon pink color camp. North Berkeley Wines. Lovely. 12.5%.
