Simple Pleasures
Happiness is a sunny day, a gorgeous view and a good bottle of rosé, writes NED GOODWIN MW
WHEN TASTING WINE it is rare that I hope for anything more than the enjoyment of what is in front of me. As I have noted in this column before, I ask for little more than balance and, thus, drinkability and pleasure. A wine may have a certain gravitas or it may be of a quaffable style made for imminent drinking. Price is also weighed into the qualitative equation, if I happen to know it. Ideally and most of all, I want the wine to say something about where it’s from, no matter how intangible and ineffable that quality is.
I also want the wine to make me reach for another glass and then, depending on the hour of the day, another. This, at least for me, is the definition of the buzzword of the moment, “drinkability”. Those bottles that disappear, drained of flavours and textures that linger in the mind, are brimming with drinkability.
Speaking of drinkability, I was of late fortunate enough to be invited for drinks to a friend’s home overlooking Sydney Harbour on a sultry late spring day. Surely there is no more beautiful sight in the world than that harbour! It makes me giddy like nowhere else. What to complement such emotion with? Rosé, rosé and more rosé!
The day commenced with an outing on the family’s boat. Kitting out the kids with life jackets (such is the wont of the nanny state) made us all thirsty and want to reach for the first cab off the ranks, Between Five Bells Rosé 2014. This is an unorthodox field-blend of a majority Shiraz followed by Cabernet, Gewurtztraminer, Pinot Noir, Zinfandel, Chardonnay and Nero d’Avola in roughly equal parts. It hails from biodynamic vineyards tilled from a brown loam and sand over a limestone substratum that speckles the Bellarine Peninsula abutting Geelong in southern Victoria, about an hour or so outside Melbourne. A bright, florid pink, the wine is full-weighted, viscous and laden with tangy red berry flavours whipped into a line of freshness across the palate due to citrus overtones and a suitably brisk acidity. Pithy yet long of finish, this wine is all pleasure!
It always surprises me that while rosé is among the fastest growing categories of wine across the world, much of Asia (outside of the expat communities that function autonomously within) has failed to latch on to its hedonistic pleasures. I have various theories about this and you may well disagree. However, in essence, rosé’s very gulpabilty requires a certain maturity of drinker and sophistication of wine culture to embrace it.
Paradoxical, perhaps, yet the bipolar nature of the Japanese market, for example, with its recessionary squeeze of prices on the one hand and its fastidious attention to the minutiae of soil types, vineyard names and winemaking traits on the other (particularly among the sommelier set), means that rosé is simply too much fun to facilitate either of these cultural models – neither of which have anything to do with enjoying wine as integral to a lifestyle, at least as it is perceived in the West. A wine’s value is too ofen confused with a low or lower price, or with obvious brands that appease those who know little while saving face with risk-averse “big” names. Sitting outside and effortlessly throwing back wine is a foreign concept in such a context.
Yet rosé can be as complex as it is delicious; versatile with a wide range of foods, including many things on the typical izakaya table. While it may not marry with everything perfectly, the search for perfection is, in itself, inherently effete, dull, and time-consuming, detracting from the visceral pleasure that wine, and most of all rosé, can bring. Should the ephemera of perfection grace your table, revel in it, smile and move on. It may not appear again.
Following an hour or so on the boat, the temperature rose into the 30s, making it among the warmest spring days on record. We reached for something a little lighter, herbal scented and Mediterranean-infused: Domaine Le Galantin Bandol 2013. A hint of musk, watermelon and subtle thyme, lavender and garrigue notes evoked the scents of the sun and brittle blue skies of the southern Rhône, Provence, Spain, parts of Italy and even Australia. After all, these are places where wine is enjoyed in gorgeous settings that liberate the mind from the mundane dilly-dallies of life.
Most of all, perhaps, rosé allows us to embrace the resolute urgency of now and all that is beautiful before us: our glass, our wine.
Close your eyes and pour a glass ... there you go ... easy ...