This is my first go at this, and my theme, rosés, is a little more prosaic than the two previous great weeks from @Chris_Seiber and @Jim_Stewart , but let’s see what we can come up with. (Being based in Hong Kong, I may be a bit slow in any responses here - I’m asleep when many of you are awake.)
It seems to me that rosés (at least still rosés) have long languished as a “last resort” option in many people’s minds, often suggested as a wine for non-wine-afficiandos. But that really does them a disservice. They come in a huge range of styles from a huge range of places, some looking like a white wine with just a faint salmon/copper tinge, some pretty much indistinguishable from a light red wine, and everything in between. Different countries/appellations allow different methods of production: by skin contact, saignée or blending, and some (particularly Italy) have other terms for it in some areas (cerasuolo, chiaretto, as well as rosato).
A lot of it is made to be drunk young, but some styles such as cerasuolo and champagnes can take (and benefit from) some aging.
Many people see rosé simply as a light, summer “on the porch” type thirst-quencher, and whilst many of them are pretty good at that job, there are others that are great food wines or wines to contemplate. And hence my choice of rosés as the theme in what many would regard as their “off season” - let’s look at them as wines for all seasons and see which ones others are drinking.
So you can empty my wallet as usual by US$5 for each tasting note posted here for any sort of rosé wine (still, sparkling, even the currently fashionable “natural” sludges), US$10 if accompanied by a picture of you with a bottle, and since four countries (France, Spain, USA, Italy) make 75% of the world’s rosés, in a bid to expand our horizons, an extra US$2 in either case if the wine isn’t from one of those four countries.
And so to my chosen charity. I thought about picking one of the small local ones here in Hong Kong, but maybe that wouldn’t resonate so well with the audience here on WineBerserkers. So I’m going with Médecins Sans Frontières (or “Doctors Without Borders” as it is known in the USA).
I guess this charity is already known to many of you (I’m aware that there are many medics on these forums) - their role is to provide medical assistance to people affected by conflict, epidemics, disasters, or exclusion from healthcare, whatever the local politics, religion or other fractious issues. They are quite a big operation now, but their funding is 97% from individuals, and over 80% of their expenditure is on direct operational work. Volunteers (medics and others) come from all over the world to work on the various projects for as much time as they can afford. You can read in a lot of detail about what they have achieved over the years, their funding, organisation and so on, on their excellent website.
So that’s the plan for this week - go find a rosé or two from your cellar (or get down the shops if you haven’t got any) and tell us what you think. I’ll get one of mine up here later today (I draw the line at drinking at 10am, even for a good cause!)
If you can add a good story around your experiences with rosés then so much the better - it is, after all, often associated with romantic (or attempted romantic) moments.
