Pairing rosé with roses
MATCH FLAVOUR AND FRAGRANCE OF THE FLOWER WITH SA WINES
The Rosé and Rose Festival is on this long weekend.
Artful wine pairing whether it is with a dish or chocolate, is about enlivening the senses to fully enjoy the flavour and fragrance of both. This weekend connoisseurs of wine are invited to take wine pairing to a new level. That is, to match the flavour and fragrance of roses with some of the best Rosé wines South Africa has to offer from eight wine farms.
The Rosé and Rose festival takes place this long weekend at Ludwig’s Rose Farm, next to the N1, north of Pretoria. It coincides with the rose farm’s magnificent show of 1 000 different varieties of autumn roses with their larger blooms and more intense colours.
The perfume of a rose
According to the French rose breeder Henri Delbard, identifying a rose perfume can be as much of an art as identifying the delicate bouquet of wine. It requires a great deal of calm and concentration.
Each rose has its own distinct scent, as recognisable as a famous brand of perfume. All fragrance is an assemblage of natural olfactory notes, like lavender, citronella, peach, lilac, cedar, jasmine and so on. The most volatile notes – those that we smell first – belong to two families, the citrus and the aromatic. These are the “head” notes, which Delbard describes as the “spirit” of the perfume.
Then come the notes of flowers, fruit, spices and greenery (grass, ivy, leaves). These are the perfume’s heart, its personality. Finally, there are the deepest notes that form the base of the perfume.
How to pair wine and roses
While there is no guideline for pairing a rose perfume and the bouquet of a wine, here is a suggestion:
Start with the rose. Take a brief sniff, no more than a few seconds, lest the hypersensitive nasal olfactory cells become anaesthetised. Then let your memory go to work.
Explore your collection of scents for a similar fragrance. Take the glass of wine. Swirl the wine in the glass, put your nose into glass and inhale. Let your memory identify the different fragrances.
Take a sip of the wine, rolling it around your mouth to identify the flavours. Evaluate and see whether the rose you’ve chosen complements the wine. What better way to fully enjoy the rose and the wine?
Pairing suggestions
“Hey Jude” is a wonderfully fragrant hybrid tea with large, frilly edged blooms that are a warm blend of apricot and orange with a blush of pink. The suggested pairing is with Porcupine Ridge Rosé that has the pink fruity notes of strawberry and raspberry with underlying notes of apricot, peach and citrus.
The overpowering fragrance of “Thula”, a pink hybrid tea rose came to mind for the Robertson Winery Natural Sweet Rosé, that has lots of cherry flavours and is a low-alcohol, easy-to-drink wine.
The Magenta pink “Smell Me” hybrid tea rose matches the intense pink of the Fat Bastard Rosé “Think Pink” as both have the expressive perfume of ripe red fruits. “Smell Me” is a tall growing rose that grows and flowers strongly.
“Pink Vintage” shares the same coppery hue as the Wolftrap Rosé and also shares its more subtle earthy perfume. The unusual colour and flower shape of the rose is bound to capture attention. As the blooms age they change from apricot-brown to a vintage pink sheen.
Spier’s Signature chardonnay\ Pinot noir is a salmon coloured wine, matching that of our novelty rose “Kimi Makwetu” and both have a crisp, subtly fruity fragrance.
The densely petalled, rosette shaped blooms are produced in profusion on the tall growing rose.
A whiff of spice, freshness of cucumber and red berry aromas of the Vinologist Swartland Rosé is matched by aspects of musk, myrrh and old rose that are the base fragrances of our new “Andani Amandaline”. This white Panarosa shrub rose has a very soft pink at the centre.
Zandvliet’s Shiraz Rosé displays a distinct bouquet of rose petals and what better rose to pair it with than “Oklahoma”, one of the most perfumed roses of all time. Its deep velvet red blooms are large and full and the bush is strong growing and healthy.
The Rosé and Roses Festival runs until Monday, from 9am to 5pm, and entrance is free. It includes rose displays, tractor train rides through the rose fields, a children’s play area and light meals from The Rose Kitchen.
Visit www.ludwigsroses.co.za or call 012-544-0144.