Rosé Revived!

My earliest wine experiences were with products such as Casel Mendes and Mateus, like many other Canadians. These two rosé wines were of questionable quality, at least in those days, even to unsophisticated palates. The successors to these products in North America were the “blush” wines, or “white Zinfandels” which didn’t raise the quality bar any higher. I therefore have some sympathy for those who have little interest in sipping rosés as it was many years before I found new interest in the style.

The fact is that the production and sale of rosé is booming in many traditional wine markets. France is both the largest producer and consumer of the product, where consumption has basically tripled over the last two decades. The USA is a large producer as well, and is also showing consistent double-digit year-over-year growth in sales. The most interesting aspect of this growth in the USA is that sales of sweet pink wines are declining while dry rosé is booming. The story is similar here in Canada where rosé sales are up 50% in the past decade, with most of that increase coming in the last few years.

The two most common and “acceptable” wine-making methods are the use of skin contact and saignée (rather than blending red and white wines together). In both cases you start with red-skinned grapes. Using skin contact ranging from a few hours to a day or more, before fermentation, some of the colour and other taste and aroma compounds are extracted from the skins before the skins are discarded. Alternatively, in the saignée method, the wine-maker can run off some of the juice from the must of a red wine. The remaining must concentrates the characteristics of the red wine, and the run-off juice can be made into rosé.

As a type or style of wine, rosé is closer in character to a white wine. Most of the tannins and phenolics that give red wine its body and contribute to its structure are not extracted with the limited skin contact of the wine-making methods. This also has the affect of reducing the shelf life of a rosé. White wines tend to show aromas and flavours including tropical, apple, citrus, and stone fruits as well as herbs, flowers, and sometimes butter and cream. I find that rosés share the acidity and freshness usually associated with whites, but have aromas and flavours which show more of the berry and brambly fruit flavours of red wines – like cherry, strawberry, and raspberry.

Such characteristics make rosés similar to whites in terms of food matches – lighter fare including seafood of all sorts, chicken, pork, and even lamb. Rosé is a popular choice with charcuterie, some cheeses, light curries, and hot weather.

The Kim Crawford Pansy! Rosé 2015 from New Zealand (NLC $19.90) is made from a blend of Merlot and Malbec grapes. The aroma matches the predictions above and shows exuberant bramble fruit character of raspberry and blacknerry. You might think you were drinking a red wine except for the absence of tannins. It was delightful with some very fresh pan-fried cod! Score: 15/Very Good.