non-specific commercial post: I sell a lot of Rose!
A few eons ago I posted a poll about blending wines at home. This was after opening a 15 year old bottle of village-level Cote de Beaune, finding it tired, and hunting up a young, inexpensive Oregon Pinot to splash ~10% into it. It worked for me. Turns out (no surprise), not many people try this at home. I do because I have the ingredients and blend wine for a good part of my livelihood.
Sally doesn’t drink much any more, and when she does, it’s usually Rose. She had never actually heard of Alesia, but she’s been to Rhys with me and when I pulled the cork on a half bottle of Alesia she figured it out and had a glass. That left me a little short of wine as the evening wound down.
I opened a bottle of a solid Rose, one that I sell, not a very pale Vin Gris or patio pounder (you don’t pound on patios in Maine in January). It was OK with the pork chop, but I had half a leftover bottle of Rioja Joven in the fridge and poured an ounce into my glass of Rose and the Rose got even better. A good idea, if I do say so myself. There are a lot of very pale Roses out there and darker ones with substance, if not an endangered species, might getting thin on the ground. But they’re easy to make at home.
Can’t say I “make” Rose, but we drink it year round at our house. Love that it is light, refreshing and food friendly. Note that it will be 27F in Tucson tonight and I’m drinking Vina Bosconia w/Shepherd’s Pie.
I’m in California where we don’t have much of a winter (although did reach freezing this morning). But, I enjoy Bandol Rose year round and would do so even if I still lived in Montana. Not eating around the campfire, after all.
This is interesting. I’m not generally a big Rose drinker. However, it seems to me that the darker Roses are just being replaced by lighter Reds. As we all know, there has been something of a retrenching from bigger bruising wines to more fresh styles. That has led to more light reds. Why drink Rose when you can have an 11.5% alcohol refreshing chillable Red? (That was somewhat tongue in cheek). Or perhaps, one could say that the lines are simply blurring. When is a Red a Red and a Rose a Rose…other than obvious methods of production, which don’t matter to many consumers?
I certainly drink roses year round, especially Mourvedre-based roses. Yes, yes, I happen to make one - but to me, this variety just tends to make a very food friendly rose that is a perfect accompaniment to food all year round.
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