Zactly. Or quoting myself from a previous comment in this thread…
The reason I like Rose (typically traditionally made styles i.e. those from Cotes du Provence, Tavel, Bandol, and the occasional new world Rose not made from Saignee) is that at the basest level it is refreshing, tasty, and clean, but with a bit more red wine character- i.e. light notes of berry, watermelon, etc- that are unique to Rose and not found in white wines.
Just had a 2014 Musar Jeune alongside a Heitz Grignalino at our Tanglewood lawn picnic. It is some serious juice, and while delicious now, I’d love to see where this ends up in a few years. Definitely demands your attention - and was magic with the pate we had.
The Heitz was nice, but I’d put more in the range of “summer quaffers”.
At our house we tend to drink more wine in the summer in general, tending toward informal backyard get togethers, ergo lots of rose. We found Joguet in the Turks a couple years back, so that’s a staple, leading to other Chinons, some Ott (good but don’t understand the price premium), Boulay, and a mixed bag of Provençal. A few that haven’t been mentioned include Red Car (CA Pinot), Muga (really good, every year), and Maison Bleue, had a few bottles stashed away and found them after a couple years. Fact is MB makes really excellent wines in general, that rose I had was a standout in its class. We probably drink 2/3 cases every year, making up a fairly large% of our total consumption. If any of you have any Italian recommendations (saw a couple above) I’d be curious there.
Used to scorn them but starting to like them. Just had a decent Tablas Creek rose.
So I heard it was 104 degrees in Seattle. Here in Maine, it’s been getting towards 90 a lot more than I would like, it’s also dry.
I used to favor Moselle-Saar-Ruwer Riesling as my hot weather cooler. Of course, that was 20 - 40 years ago, when a Riesling Kabinett was typically 7 - 9% alcohol and 1 - 2% residual sugar (10 - 20 grams) with more than balancing acidity. Global warming has ended the existence of those wines. There may be some Danish islands that will be able to mimic the style later this century… don’t know if there are places in northern Germany that have the necessary slate and exposure.
That leaves me with Rose for an uncomplicated quaff. I tend to start my evenings in this weather with a mid-weight Chardonnay or Sauvignon Blanc. I’m about to have dinner, which is grilled cheese sandwiches with “Canadian” bacon, and a green salad… everything from Maine except for the garlic and anchovies. I’m switching to a 2015 Rose I import.
I’ve never had a Lopez Heredia Rose at 10 years. I guess I’ll have to spring for one. But a 2015 or 2013 Tempier or Ott would be fine with dinner, I just happen to prefer drinking my own, almost as good and my cost is barely 1/10 of those.
Dan Kravitz
This seems to sum up some of the view points in this thread… Rosé Is Exhausting - Eater
A shameless plug indeed, but here’s a counter article to the funny Eater article mentioned above:
Cheers.
Nice mention! Congrats Larry!
That Mourvèdre rosé of Larry’s is excellent. And regarding Sarah’s great post, it would be a good match with that octopus, whereas a halbtrocken seems pretty random as a substitute.
I think a lot of it has to do with the grapes used and more importantly, the purpose of the wine.
If it’s made just because the winery wanted to bleed off some juice, the grapes will have been picked to make a red wine. They’ll be riper than you might want and the rosé is likely to be less satisfying. But there are many people who are growing and picking specifically to make rosé.
In Rioja, as well as other places, they would mix red and white grapes, which seems perfectly acceptable to me as a way to bring about yet another dimension to the wine. That’s no longer allowed in Rioja, which seems silly, but people who are more willing to experiment are trying it elsewhere, including here in the US.
In much of Spain and France, the rosés are based on Grenache and they were meant to be simple wines. In the 1970s, things like Lancers were popular, but were considered déclassé by “real” wine lovers and then when white Zin came around, that was the nail in the coffin for rosé. Funny thing was, because people “knew” that rosé wasn’t supposed to be sophisticated, they called it “blush” wine. It had a little RS and again came to define the category.
But it seems a little crazy to dismiss an entire approach to wine as somehow being deficient. Some wines come in white or pink versions - Vinho Verde and Txakolina for example, both nice summer wines. And then there are more interesting things like you find in Collioure, where they’ve been growing various colors of Grenache for years, often fermenting them together, sometimes making fortified wine, sometimes even sherry-like under flor, and sometimes pink still wine.
For me, choice is always good. Sometimes an uber ripe, oaky wine is what you feel like having. Sometimes a lean, green, mean wine is more enticing. Sometimes an austere white is what seems appropriate, and sometimes a classy, crisp, aromatic and complex rosé is what seems right at the moment. Because I’ve had less from the US than from elsewhere, I’ve spent a good part of this summer exploring CA rosé - there’s a lot of good stuff out there. If you’re looking for a good example, start with Larry’s.
Not sure if it’s been mentioned here already but I’m drinking a bottle of 2016 Enfield Rose of Pinot Noir and it’s truly outstanding. Fabulous color that’s closer to red than pink and wonderful balance. I need more domestic rose like this. John Lockwood strikes again.
Haven’t read through the entire thread
I would drink a lot more rose champagne if I could find reasonably priced splits, one of my favorite rose sparklers is only a few dollars cheaper for a 375 than the full bottle!
Sitting at home on a Saturday, I read through this thread and it prompted me to pull corks on the 2014 and 2015 versions of Chateau de Pibarnon’s Rose’ Nuances. This is their 100% Mourvèdre cuvée, and it is quite tasty today 
.
So put me in the camp of drinking Rose’ regularly, although definitely more often in the Summer.
I agree. That sums it up really well for me. But I’d also add that sometimes life is about more than the wine in your glass. A good rose keeps my interest but not so much that it becomes distracting and demands that I focus on it. Will a rose go down as one of the top 10 wines I ever drank? Likely not. Will a moment when I was hanging out with family/friends and drinking a rose go down as one of the top 10 moments of my life? Quite possibly.
to Rachel McDonald,
I love your line about the top 10 moments of your life. And I agree that much as I love it, a Rose probably won’t be among the 10 best wines I’ll ever drink.
However a dark, rather metallic Rose I had out of a metal keg in a lost taverna on Crete might just possibly hit both lists. Magic moment, magnified by the incomparable intensity of the wine with the goat.
Dan Kravitz
Dan Kravitz
Love this!
But I will say that my first Tempier Rose that I had a number of years truly was awe-inspiring and was one of my ‘best wine experiences’ as it showed me how ‘unique’ a finely crafted rose could be - and set me on a different path with my own winemaking . . .
Cheers.
Lots of recommendations for French roses. Any California rose recommendations? It seems like most pinot noir focused producers as well as wineries just rounding out their offerings (Martin Ray, Auteur, Rusack, etc) make a rose, but the best I’ve had so far are Paul Lato’s rose of pinot noir and Tercero’s rose of mourvedre. My consumption as well as my wife’s went way up last year, and I found I was woefully understocked for the hotter months of the fall. Also would welcome French recommendations easy to source at a place like Hi Time or Envoyer in So Cal.
For all the rest of the talk on this thread, it just seems to me people like to bash things that have become popular. There are lots of bad examples of rose out there, but it feels like some producers are starting to make delicious examples as well. Doesn’t everyone need a change of pace from cab, pinot noir, chardonnay, etc?
Bryan,
Consider hitting up Wine Country in Signal Hill, not far off the Cherry Ave exit in Long Beach. Give Samantha Dugan a call and she’ll hook you up!
And I do still have more of my 2016s left 
Cheers!
So I recently had a sparkling Italian rose (half pinot half nebbiolo) that knocked my socks off so i bought half a case. Then took a couple to a friend’s bday party (lots of dancing!) and everyone was just blown away so I immediately bought six more bottles. Should be great this summer.
The wine? Vajra N.S. della Neve
Excited to think of rosé season coming soon. Yes, I will open a rose any night of the year.
Summer-time is my main consumption.
that Vajra sparkling rose sounds great.
I will say that, to me, some of the best 2016 roses, especially those made with mourvedre and similar grapes, are just starting to come into their prime drinking window.
I had a 2016 Tempier Last night and it was absolutely singing. And I just tried a sip this morning at room temperature and it is even better!