Food needs consideration when pouring rosé
Summer’s here and the time is right for drinking rosé in the streets. Even here in Saskatchewan, where men are men and at least some of the women compliant, rosé has slowly but surely become a summer drink. After all, only a real man could drink rosé in public.
In the same way you can vinify a red wine as a white wine (e.g. pinot noir and Meunière are both red, but in Champagne appear as white) you can vinify just about any grape as a rosé. Until recently there was little reason to do so.
Tavel was a much-loved rosé from France, but very few of us pursued it. You can buy a bottle at the Saskatoon Co-op Wine Store if you want to discover what the fuss is about. Rosé was left for those of us liking pink fluids in our glass and such folk were ignored by the better class of drinker.
Rosé is a great compromise drink. You can find quite sweet varieties that will work with your barbecued ribs and sauce or seafood. The dry varieties work just fine with everything up to and including steak. I picked up four that run the spectrum of such wines and you do need to pay a bit of attention to the wine depending on your proposed use.
Marques de Caceres always produces a Tempranillo rosado and I have found it a reliable refuge at any number of summer parties. It is a bone-dry rosé, the kind of wine you’d select with, say, a herbed pork tenderloin. The profile is tremendously integrated and I suspect it’s subsidized by the winery. You won’t find as well made a red Rioja at this price.
The colour is a light coral (I quite enjoyed the colour differences available from these four wines), the bouquet is just slightly floral. The palate is fresh, crisp and fruity with that perfect dry finish that makes the wine so attractive. If you’re a dry wine drinker this rosé is for you.
Melipal is a Malbec rosé, something unheard of in the world until this century. The colour is an intense cherry Kool-Aid red. Of course, the intensity of the colour is a hallmark of the Malbec grape. This wine is another dry rosé, although in this case there is a touch of sugar, maybe 500 milligrams per litre (mg/L). If your palate is good you’ll notice it, but it is still not a sweet wine.
On the other hand, that touch of fruitiness and sugar will make this a more flexible wine for food pairing. I doubt I’d choose this opposite a maple sugarglazed trout, but in a pinch it would do. The bouquet is more herbaceous and black fruit compared to the Maqueres and maybe a bit more complex.
Masi Rosa is another step toward the sweeter wines, with maybe 1,500 mg/L of sugar. This is not unexpected as Masi has applied some appasimento to the wine. The bouquet is fruity, the palate soft and well-rounded and the finish intense enough to please a wino. In short, this is an excellent wine, but it is also about 50 per cent more than the other wines listed here.
Girls Night Out is a label from the Colio winery in Ontario’s Niagara Region. Unusually for such novelty labels, it is also a VQA wine with the product 100 per cent Canadian. It’s an interesting blend of Chardonnay and Riesling, with a dash of Pinot Gris and cabernet franc to add the colour.
It’s about the shade of watermelon juice. The bouquet is fruity, primarily strawberry. The palate is a bit more active with a nice touch of acidity and raspberry. And the finish is the kind of thing that will keep everyone quite happy in their chair on the deck.
The key to all of the above is what you are going to eat with your wine (if anything.) If you’re just lazing a day on the deck, you probably will be happiest with the Girls Night Out or Masi. If you’re a bonafide dry wine drinker — and that’s an increasingly endangered species — then you’ll prefer the Melipal or the Marques de Caceres. Personally, I drink in the latter category, but you will see me pouring a Masi Rosa into my glass from time to time. Over to you.
Wines of the week
Rosa dei Masi, Italy, 2013. $21.98 Marques de Caceres Rosado, Spain, 2012. $15.99 Melipal Malbec Rosé, Argentina, 2012. $13.49 Girls Night Out, Canada, 2012. $13.99