WINE
By Leigh Pomeroy
Celebrating the lovely, dry rosés of southern France
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pring and summer are perfect for rosés — light, delicious, pretty, forgiving, lovely, unpretentious and… well… just plain sexy. The great thing about rosés is that you don't have to plan to serve them. You just need a few in your fridge to pull out for any occasion — a friend dropping by, a lazy weekend afternoon, a beautiful sunset, an experiment with hors d'oeuvres, a light veggie or seafood meal. Rosés go with a wide variety of foods: Japanese sushi and tempura, Greek dolmas and avgolemono (lemon soup), Mexican snapper, southern catfish and crawfish, and (of course) Minnesota walleye. The key to enjoying rosé is to drink it young — that is, in the year after it's made or, at most, within two years. Less than a handful of rosés improve with age, most notably those from Cahors and Bandol in France, but both are difficult to find in the U.S. So the bottom line is: The younger the better. Good wine shops, in fact, sell off their older rosés in the fall so they have room to put in fresh ones when spring arrives. A lot of wine drinkers put up their noses when they think "rosé" because they have memories of the old sweet versions like Mateus and Lancers, the cheap jug stuff and the once ubiquitous White Zinfandels. But today's quality rosés are all dry. The best ones for the money come from southern France, including the Rhône Valley, and bear area names like Côtes du Rhône, Ventoux, Côtes de Provence, Coteaux d’Aix-en-Provence, Costières de Nîmes and Languedoc. One of the most highly regarded appellations is Tavel, which by law only produces rosé. A good value rosé that comes from an area right next door is Lirac. Other appellations that you might find on bottles are the IGPs (Indication Géographique Protégées) Pays d'Oc (encompassing the Languedoc and Roussillon) and Méditerranée (encompassing Provence and the island of Corsica). They may be blended from several sub-appellations, including those listed above, and are of similar quality. The primary grape for nearly all these rosés is grenache, which imparts a slight mandarin and, to me, salty flavor. Other grapes include syrah, cinsault, mourvèdre, carignan, cabernet sauvignon and caladoc — a relatively new hybrid grape that is a cross between grenache and malbec. All of these are red 34 • JUNE 2021 • MANKATO MAGAZINE
grapes that add unique characteristics to the rosé, like berry, cherry, spice, herbs and minerality. And all are well-suited to the warm climate of the region, which means they retain their natural acidity in the hot summer sun. More and more, some vintners are adding the white grape vermentino (also known as rolle) to the blend, which adds flavors such as pear, peach, grapefruit and even almond. Vermentino is also found in white blends from southern France, but the best pure Vermentinos come from the island of Sardinia off the west coast of Italy. Aside from taste, perhaps the best attraction of southern French rosés is that they are inexpensive. Some good ones cost as little as $10. How can the French do this? Because there are oceans of grapes in southern France and many of the producers are large cooperatives owned by the growers themselves. Their facilities are state-of-the-art and produce very high quality wines. Another reason why the wines are fairly priced is that they don't need to be aged. They're made and released to the market in just a matter of months. Is it worth spending the extra bucks for a rosé that's over $20? Unless it's from Bandol, the answer is usually "non!" Many of the higher-priced rosés are expensive because they're attached to some celebrity, such as Brad Pitt (Miraval), Jon Bon Jovi (Hampton Water), Kylie Minogue (Kylie), Sarah Jessica Parker (Invivo X) and John Legend (LVE). They're all made by large wineries, often co-ops, which produce many brands and labels of rosé. Unless you crave putting money into the pockets of people who are already rich, I would choose other less expensive offerings. The Bordeaux area also produces dry, inexpensive rosés, but these are made from cabernet sauvignon, merlot and cabernet franc grapes. They tend to have more color than those from southern France, usually are fuller and less tart, and often display the slightly green olive/herbal characteristic derived from these grapes. Other great rosés come from the Loire region north of Bordeaux. But to delve into these requires a whole separate article. So go out and look for French rosés, preferably at your local wine shop. But if you can't find what you want there, wine retailers on the web offer a plentiful selection.
