The Rosé category is one of substance and deserving of the attention it is receiving.
Like a reformed smoker, I am more passionate about rosé than most rosé drinkers.
I used to be dismissive, turned o by the marketing of drinking rosé by the pool or sea side and the image of the Mediterranean lifestyle (I live near the Mediterranean, after all). Rosés’ big marketing success has indisputedly been due to being promoted as a simple uncomplicated wine that anyone can drink, the antithesis to wine snobbery.
The message is simple. Even if you know nothing about wine you can drink rosé! No worries about vintages - drink it within the year. No need to be a fancy cook, with complicated wine and food pairings - rosé goes with all food. Use the glasses you have - there are no special glasses. Just drink and enjoy rosé fresh from the fridge and even add ice.
This approach has both enraged wine snobs and, more signicantly, kept rosés in a category of wines which are not worth considering. Wine merchants, wine writers and consumers condemn the banality of the style, bemoaning its success, yet happy to prot from its saleability. It’s a Catch-22 dilemma: by keeping rosé accessible to a young and or inexperienced market, prices are kept low, which means that the vast majority of rosé wines tasted by most people will inevitably not be the most exciting of examples.
The popular image keeps rosé cheap, with a glass ceiling on the price. Many state that £/US$15-20 is the maximum price for a rosé and would never try a rosé at a higher price point, thereby denying themselves the chance to taste or to see the potential of a rosé wine. When Chateau d’Esclans launched Garrus as the most expensive rosé in the world, it was its price, £80, that made it famous, rather than its quality, a situation unlikely to have raised an eyebrow for premium red and white wines.
Instead, the branding continues with the marketing hype of the colour pink (even Pantone has rosé wine shades) without looking at the style further. Rosé is undoubtedly pink, in shades from owhite to almost red but why should this make rosé lovers also wear pink? Why are so many commentaries of the style so focused on the colour and nothing else? Pink is perceived as the gateway to sales success, as seen in the introduction of Prosecco, retsina rosé, and the increasing number of pink gins. I have nothing against
these drinks if, and it is a big IF, it is not just colour but there is also a distinctive rosé fruit character. Regional wine styles which have moved from their own character to pale ‘Provence style’, contribute to a decline in the diversity of styles. Chiaretto di Bardolino and Bordeaux rosés being classic examples of wines which are going down the Provence-style path.
The problem comes back to colour. Always. Often, I’ve tasted rosé with professionals or consumers who cannot move from the colour question. But I would suggest that - while much rosé produced is merely a pu of pink hype - this wine style also has an intellectual and artistic beauty that is ignored by too many wine acionados.
Stepping back from the focus on pinkness, seeing rosé as a wine reveals a dierent world. There are red ags - high yields, overly early harvesting, minimal skin-contact for minimal colour, and cold fermentation, which creates the palest of delicate rosés in a relatively uniform style.
Critics who condemn rosé as being all hype and no substance will often claim their preferred exceptions to be Tavel (appellation generically), Domaine Tempier from Bandol - always Tempier with no knowledge of other Bandol estates - Tondonia from Rioja, Garrus from Chateau d’Esclans in Provence and a range of oddments. Interestingly, these are all quite powerful rosés, many of which have been in oak, generally with ageing potential and mostly not pale. These critics do not limit their experience of an appellation’s reds or whites to one wine before forming an assessment.
The hype around colour obfuscates the search for these more complex rosés. Try googling “interesting rosé”, “complex rosé”, “dierent rosé”, “natural rosé”, “darker rosé” - or any adjective other than “pale rosé.” All largely give a similar listing of the same rosés which dominate the market. No wonder it is di¼cult to expand the market for more diverse styles.
It is important to dene what a rosé is. If dened by colour alone - meaning the wine should be pink - many are so pale they could be dened as blanc de noir or white wine. At the other extreme, the copper onion-skin tones of some oaked or aged rosés closely resemble orange wines. And a few rosés are dark enough to appear a light red. L’Irréductible from Domaine de la Bégude in Bandol is dark cherry pink with lots of intense fruit, the complete antithesis of pale pink, but backed by the conviction of the winemaker that this is the best expression of Mourvedre rosé, succeeds.
My denition of rosé is based on two questions: Does the producer call it rosé? Is it made from a blend that includes red/black/ gris grapes that do not nish fermentation in contact with their skins? (Rosé des Riceys is a prime example of a rosé which includes a partial fermentation on the skins).
Good winemakers of all styles of wine are a creative crowd. They are busy exploring the possibilities of rosé, by playing with varieties, site selection, harvest dates, length of maceration, indigenous yeast (or at least very neutral yeast), temperature, vessels, ageing
on lees, aged rosés. Cirque de Grives from Chateau la Gordonne in Provence, a non-oaked premium rosé fermented in concrete eggs, is powerful, intense, extracted, and extremely well made, full of ripe fruit and vibrant acidity. Pinot Grigio ramato, with its copper pink colour, can have texture and complexity but is accredited with orange wine trendiness while wines labelled Pinot Grigio Blush are relegated to being rosé. The o-dry rosés of Anjou are damned for the twin horrors of being pink and sweet, ignoring amazing examples of nely balanced fruit, sugar and acidity and their excellent food pairing ability. Producers struggle knowing that those who dismiss their rosés are quick to praise their sweet Coteaux du Layon.
Start exploring rosé like this and there is a world of exceptional wines worthy of hype.
This is where I nd rosé really exciting. The sense of exploration and discovery. The more rosé is dismissed as over-hyped with no substance, the more I am delighted to discover a wine which intrigues and surprises. Not all of the experiments work, and they are far from rivalling the grand crus of the world, but there is something vibrantly exciting about the exploration of a wine style no one else is considering, of being made to think how a wine is dened.
The ‘hype’ may be nothing more than a successful marketing campaign which created and fed into a fashion trend, but it would not have succeeded without the quality of wine behind it. Is there substance and validity to the category? Denitely! Those who dismiss rosé based on their marketing image need to see rosé not through pink tinted glasses, but with the eyes of a wine lover, and explore beyond the obvious. Rosé is more than just a wine with too much marketing.