CHEF PROFILE: CHERYL JOHNSON Michaela Morris

Photo credit: Dominique Lafond

PROFILE: Cheryl Johnson By Michaela Morris

Cheryl Johnson is a self-professed ‘nonplanner.’ This might seem odd for a chef of over 20 years and co-owner of Québec’s highly awarded, insanely popular restaurant - Montréal Plaza.

Superficially, her life reads like a series of happy accidents, yet a closer glance reveals intuitive decisions made by someone who knows herself well. Perhaps this comes from her peripatetic upbringing. “Travelling is one of the best ways to get an education about life,” declares Johnson. “It really helped me become who I am and was a lot more positive than negative.”

Post secondary school, she enrolled in an engineering program in California. “I enjoyed math and science, but I really hated reading – literature I mean,” she recalls. But engineering wasn’t the right fit. It wasn’t long before she found her calling as a chef. “I grew up in a food family. My dad was a huge cook and I’m also half Filipino,” she explains.

Johnson’s first restaurant job was at Tomiko, a family-owned Japanese joint near San Diego. “I was managing a surf shop while going to school and there was this restaurant on a cliff overlooking the beach.” Despite never having eaten there or even setting foot in it, she was determined to work there. “I might have lied a little on my resume to get a job.” She started as a server, but the owners soon recognized her interest in cooking and invited her to work in the kitchen.

It was the owners of Tomiko who encouraged her to enroll at the Culinary Institute of America (CIA) in Upstate New York. The twoyear program included a five-month practicum. While her peers had designs on internships at famous restaurants in the Big Apple, Johnson wasn’t keen on peeling carrots in a kitchen basement for 10 hours a day. She also wanted to use the opportunity to go abroad.

“The rule was that if you were doing a stage outside the country, you had to be able to speak that language 100%.” She got away with Montréal even though it is officially a French speaking city. The next hurdle was getting a visa. When the school cautioned that she wouldn’t be able to get one, Johnson replied, “fuck you, yes I can.” She applied to Normand Laprise’s Toqué! without knowing much about it. The reviews from previous apprentices attracted her. “Everyone said the same thing: ‘They take the time to teach you. You are part of the team.’”

Johnson arrived in Montréal in 2000. “A, I fell in love with the city. B, I fell in love with the restaurant and the people.” This is where she met her now business partner Charles-Antoine Crête. After finishing up at the CIA, Johnson returned to Montréal and ended up working at Toqué! for nine years as Crête’s sous-chef. Eventually she left Toqué! to help open a restaurant in Thailand. “I’d only worked at two places in my life, so I wanted to see something else.” What was supposed to be a three-month contract ended up being a three-year project.

Before leaving for Thailand, Johnson and Crête had already talked about opening a restaurant together. “We always say: each on our side we can accomplish a lot but together we can accomplish even more.” This became clear to her during her time in Thailand.

When Johnson returned to Montréal, she and Crête lived together to save money (she assures me that the relationship has always been platonic). “We wanted to build a restaurant that feels like people are coming to our house.” The 70-seat Montréal Plaza, which opened in 2015, is just that - one big, really fun dinner party. While it may be hard to put a finger on the specific cuisine, the restaurant is 100% pure Cheryl and Charles-Antoine.

The two are also partners in Foodchain. Launched in November 2019, “it is the fastest fast food - and it’s healthy.” The vegetarian

juice bar makes smoothies to order - each one packing in a pound of vegetables.

Johnson spends a lot of time in the kitchen and her love of food hasn’t waned, but it isn’t just cooking that keeps her there. “A large part of what I like is the human contact, especially with the younger kids.” She transitioned from mentee to mentor long ago. “We remember what it was like when it was us,” she says. “They are the future of our industry, so we have to take care of them.”

The family feel at Montréal Plaza is palpable. And if you happen to hear AC/DC spilling out of the kitchen, you are in for an extra rocking night.

WHERE DO YOU LIVE:

Montréal. I have been here for 21 years now. It is the longest place that I’ve lived and has become my home.

WHERE DID YOU GROW UP:

All over. I moved around a lot - Philippines, Georgia, Texas, Hawaii, Japan.

FAVOURITE COMFORT FOOD:

Soup. I love Vietnamese Pho, but I am a huge fan of soup in general, all year around and all kinds. It’s not just the eating, it is as much the smell at home as it is cooking.

FAVOURITE INGREDIENT TO COOK WITH:

Garlic. It always adds something. You can have pasta with just oil and garlic, and it tastes amazing.

BEST CHILDHOOD FOOD MEMORY:

Cooking with my father. I was always with him in the kitchen. He wanted to become a chef as well. But back then, it wasn’t a noble job.

YOUR GO-TO RESTAURANT:

Juni. There are a lot of sushi places in Montréal but with Juni, it’s the pure form - classic, simple, good quality.

WHO IS YOUR MOST SIGNIFICANT CULINARY INFLUENCE:

My father.

WHAT DO YOU DRINK AT HOME:

It depends on my mood. Less beer, occasional cocktails, more wine.

MUSIC YOU LISTEN TO WHILE COOKING:

It depends on what I’m cooking and who I’m cooking for, haha! When we really want to pump everyone up in the kitchen at Montréal Plaza, it’s (AC/DC’s) Thunderstruck. But that’s not an everyday thing.

Brussels sprouts

Scan the QR code for Cheryl’s recipe for

Fried Brussels Sprouts

Most people hate Brussels sprouts, but this recipe has cheese; it has fruit caramel; it’s crunchy, sweet and salty. We serve it on the branch. Even people who don’t like Brussels sprouts end up loving it. All year-round people ask – when does Brussels sprouts season start? When it does, it’s like - Brussels sprouts in the restaurant everywhere.

Soul Food’s Journey By Adrian Miller

Soul Food is simultaneously one of the most marketable and misunderstood culinary terms around.

Mention the phrase “Soul Food” to those steeped in, or merely familiar with African American food traditions, and you’ll generate excitement and knowing nods of approval. In my travels around the country and the world, I’ve noticed that the vast majority of people, even the ones who’ve heard about it, don’t really know what Soul Food is. Not to worry, I’m your guide.

Soul Food blends the ingredients, culinary techniques, and traditions of people from West Africa, Western Europe, and the Americas. The seeds for this fusion cuisine were planted when Europeans captured and enslaved hundreds of thousands of West Africans and forcibly brought them to British North America from the 1600s to the 1800s. During the months-long boat trip across the Atlantic Ocean, known as “The Middle Passage,” enslaved captives were initially fed unfamiliar and rotting meat and vegetables from Europe. That maritime diet killed so many enslaved people that slavers started provisioning slave ships with more familiar West African foods like black-eyed peas and rice, groundnuts, okra, and yams.

In colonial British North America, slaveholders tried to control enslaved people’s diet by distributing a certain amount of food on a weekly basis. These controlled amounts of food were called “allotments,” “allowances,” or “rations.” Rations usually included five pounds of a starch (cornmeal, rice or sweet

Photo credit: supplied

Photo credit: supplied

Fried catfish Soul food meal

Roaming Buffalo mac ‘n’ cheese

potatoes), a couple pounds of dried, salted or smoked meat (usually pork, but it could be beef or fish), and a jug of molasses. Otherwise, enslaved African Americans survived by supplementing their diet through fishing, foraging, gardening and hunting during their leisure time.

In suitable climate conditions, the enslaved grew familiar foods from West Africa like black-eyed peas, millet, okra, sesame seeds, sorghum, and watermelon. Additionally, they substituted the foods that Europeans and Native Americans introduced to them like collard greens, corn (maize), pork, and sweet potatoes. The primary sources of protein were chickens, pigs, seafood, and wild game. Pigs and chickens were popular choices for meat because those animals were easy to raise and thus plentiful. It was during slavery that what would eventually be called Soul Food took shape. Enslaved people’s diets varied depending on whether they were situated in cities, small farms, or large plantations. On the large plantations, a team of enslaved cooks prepared food for those working in the fields while another team of enslaved cooks fed the slaveholders family in their dwelling, which was usually called “the Big House.” What enslaved people ate on the large plantations has drawn the most attention from historians, so let’s focus there. Generally, enslaved people had a breakfast of crumbled up cornbread mixed with buttermilk. The midday meal, called dinner or lunch in the nineteenth century, consisted of seasonal and locally-grown vegetables that were boiled with some spices and flavored with a small piece of pickled, salted, or smoked meat. In the evening they had “supper,” which was usually just leftovers from the midday meal. The enslaved often ate from troughs and without utensils because the latter were potential weapons and slaveholders constantly feared a slave insurrection.

On weekends and special occasions if slaveholders felt generous and the work schedule slowed down, enslaved cooks got access to more refined and prestigious ingredients like coveted cuts of meat (ham and pork shoulders), white flour, and white sugar. With these ingredients, they made things that would later become iconic dishes, things like barbecue, biscuits, fried chicken, macaroni and cheese, and sweet potato pie. From this mix of mundane and celebration food during slavery the most recognizable expressions of Soul Food took shape. The Soul Food linguistic journey rivals the fascinating twists and turns of its culinary evolution. Before there was Soul Food, any food made in the American South--regardless of class, place, and race--was called “southern cooking.” After Emancipation, large numbers of African Americans left the South for better opportunity in other parts of the U.S., in what is described as “The Great Migration.” As they took their food traditions with them, the migrant cuisine was first labeled “Down Home Cooking,” reflecting a longing for the places where they grew up. It wasn’t until the 1950s and 1960s, that African Americans race-consciously divorced their food traditions from others in the region. This was part of a broader effort by Black Power advocates to reinforce cultural ties between Blacks spread across the country. Soul Food was born as a culinary expression associated with what African Americans cooked and ate, and “southern food” became associated with whites.

This was news to white southerners who had eaten the same foods for centuries, but nonetheless, the culinary separation took hold. We’re still living with that legacy today, and a vibrant discussion of “culinary justice” has arisen to address how to reintegrate African American contributions into the southern food story. I often get asked the difference between Soul Food and southern food, and my short, snarky answer is that “Soul Food tastes better.” When pressed to elaborate, I happily explain that some distinctions emerged over time between Soul Food and southern food. The former tends to be more seasoned, rely more on variety meats,

Photo credit: supplied

Nashville Hot Chicken from Lou's Food Bar in Nashville

and blur the lines between savory and sweet than the latter.

Today, Soul Food has a lot of variety, but there are traditional favorites that make up a typical meal. The entrée could be fried chicken, fried catfish or some sort of pork (chitterlings, ham or a pork chop). The side dishes include any combination of stewed black-eyed peas, candied sweet potatoes, stewed greens (cabbage, collards, kale, mustard, turnip greens, in particular), baked macaroni and cheese, and rice. Soul food breads can be either corn-based or wheat-based, and a hot sauce made with cayenne pepper, spices and vinegar is the condiment of choice. Soul Food aficionados often wash their meal down with a sweet beverage that has a red or purple color, respectively referred to as “red drink” and “purple drank.” The most popular soul food desserts are banana pudding, peach cobbler, pound cake, and sweet potato pie.

In addition to traditional soul food, new culinary trends have emerged. With the “Down Home Healthy” approach, cooks are more health-conscious by seasoning vegetables and using leaner meats like smoked turkey instead of pork, adding margarine instead of butter, frying with vegetable oil instead of lard, and using less salt and sugar. The “Upscale Soul” trend reflects how cooks, usually fine dining chefs, use extravagant ingredients like heirloom vegetables, heritage breed meats, and exotic spices. The most popular and creative of the current Soul Food trends are vegetarian and vegan which avoid the use of meat all together. Vegans take the extra step of prohibiting the use of animal by-products like dairy and honey. Cooks are also experimenting by borrowing ideas from other cuisines to create interesting fusion dishes. Some examples are burritos or egg rolls (known as “soul rolls”) filled with things like collard greens, mashed sweet potatoes, macaroni and cheese, fried chicken with rice and gravy.

Soul Food’s popularity has caused this culinary label to become shorthand for all African American cooking. This is a mistake. Though related, the Creole cooking of Louisiana and the low country cooking of South Carolina have their own distinct culinary heritage and expression. Soul Food is more aptly described as the food that Black migrants took with them and transplanted in other places. In their new homes, they did what any migrant group does: they tried to recreate home through food. If they couldn’t get the exact same ingredients, they found substitutes, and mimicked new dishes they learned from their new neighbors from other cultures. Soul Food simultaneously condensed and expanded the southern menu, and ultimately became something different than southern food. Soul Food remains a vibrant part of the African American diet, and hopefully, you’ll be able to appropriately celebrate it by cooking and eating its delicious dishes. I promise, your soul and stomach will be satisfied.

Adrian Miller is a food writer, recovering attorney, and certified barbecue judge who lives in Denver, Colorado. He served as a special assistant to President Bill Clinton with his Initiative for One America – the first free-standing office in the White House to address issues of racial, religious and ethnic reconciliation. Adrian’s first book, Soul Food: The Surprising Story of an American Cuisine, One Plate at a Time won the James Beard Foundation Award for Scholarship and Reference in 2014. His most recent book, Black Smoke: African Americans and the United States of Barbecue, was published in 2021. Adrian is featured in the Netflix series High on the Hog: How African American Cuisine Transformed America. His go-to restaurant that never disappoints is Georgia Brown’s in Washington D.C.

Rosé: Wines of Substance or Simply Pool Juice

The rosé wine category has been growing exponentially over the past several years. What was once a category defined by insipid White Zinfandels used as “transition wines” for those looking to “step up” from wine coolers, is now filled with an abundance of styles, many modelled after the region largely responsible for the category’s growth – the pale salmon coloured rosés of Provence. Quench approached two of the globe’s esteemed wine experts to consider the question. In traditional debate style, we assigned each of them the side they would argue in favour of – so, not necessarily a reflection of their personal opinion or point of view (although Elizabeth Gabay MW did literally write the book on the category).

RESOLUTION: ROSÉ – THERE IS SUBSTANCE BEHIND THE GROWTH IN ROSÉ, IS IT NOT JUST HYPE AND THE CATEGORY DESERVES THE ATTENTION IT IS GETTING. IE. ROSÉ IS MORE THAN JUST POOL JUICE.

And now to introduce the debaters:

Elizabeth Gabay MW grew up a Londoner but always travelled around Europe with her family. After back-packing around the world, Elizabeth returned to London where, by accident she fell into the wine trade when her parents bought a holiday cottage in Provence. Elizabeth passed the Master of Wine exam in 1998, and, in 2002, moved to a village an hour north of Nice. Her thirty years of working in Provence led in 2018 to her first book Rosé, Understanding the Pink Wine Revolution. With her son Ben Bernheim, they have put together an on-line Buyers Guide to the Rosés of Southern France, published in 2021. A new guide on the Rosés of Southern France, focusing on regional differences and old vintages is due to come out this summer. Elizabeth recently released a natural rosé called Sen (Dream) made with Slovakian producer Vladimir Magula.

Elizabeth will argue in the affirmative supporting the resolution that there is substance behind the growth in rosé, and the category deserves the attention it is getting.

Michael Apstein MD has written about wine for over three decades. He received a James Beard Foundation Journalism Award in 2000 and was nominated again in 2004 and 2006. In 2008, he won the Les Grands Jours de Bourgogne Press Trophy and in 2010, he was nominated for the prestigious Cordon Bleu World Food Media Awards. Dr. Apstein is an Assistant Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School and a member of the Division of Gastroenterology at the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center. He lectures and writes frequently about wine and health and judges frequently at international and national wine competitions.

Michael will oppose the resolution and argue instead that rosé is predominantly an over-hyped category and wine lovers wouldn’t be missing much if the entire category disappeared.

Each of our debaters will have 1200 words to present their argument. There will be no rebuttal because this is print and we’re just having fun.

Quench readers will judge the quality of the evidence and arguments. Let us know who you think makes the best argument.

The Rosé category is one of substance and deserving of the attention it is receiving.

By Elizabeth Gabay MW

Rosé—why bother?

By Michael Apstein MD

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Like a reformed smoker, I am more passionate about rosé than most rosé drinkers.

I used to be dismissive, turned off by the marketing of drinking rosé by the pool or sea side and the image of the Mediterranean lifestyle (I live near the Mediterranean, after all). Rosés’ big marketing success has indisputedly been due to being promoted as a simple uncomplicated wine that anyone can drink, the antithesis to wine snobbery.

The message is simple. Even if you know nothing about wine you can drink rosé! No worries about vintages - drink it within the year. No need to be a fancy cook, with complicated wine and food pairings - rosé goes with all food. Use the glasses you have - there are no special glasses. Just drink and enjoy rosé fresh from the fridge and even add ice.

This approach has both enraged wine snobs and, more signifi cantly, kept rosés in a category of wines which are not worth considering. Wine merchants, wine writers and consumers condemn the banality of the style, bemoaning its success, yet happy to profi t from its saleability. It’s a Catch-22 dilemma: by keeping rosé accessible to a young and or inexperienced market, prices are kept low, which means that the vast majority of rosé wines tasted by most people will inevitably not be the most exciting of examples.

The popular image keeps rosé cheap, with a glass ceiling on the price. Many state that £/US$15-20 is the maximum price for a rosé and would never try a rosé at a higher price point, thereby denying themselves the chance to taste or to see the potential of a rosé wine. When Chateau d’Esclans launched Garrus as the most expensive rosé in the world, it was its price, £80, that made it famous, rather than its quality, a situation unlikely to have raised an eyebrow for premium red and white wines.

Instead, the branding continues with the marketing hype of the colour pink (even Pantone has rosé wine shades) without looking at the style further. Rosé is undoubtedly pink, in shades from off white to almost red but why should this make rosé lovers also wear pink? Why are so many commentaries of the style so focused on the colour and nothing else? Pink is perceived as the gateway to sales success, as seen in the introduction of Prosecco, retsina rosé, and the increasing number of pink gins. I have nothing against

Most rosé is innocuous, which explains its popularity.

I emphasize the word most in that sweeping statement and, of course, I am excluding rosé Champagne. Certainly, there is some high-quality still rosé on the market, such as those from Domaine Tempier or Château Pradeaux, to name just two. Indeed, the high-quality rosé category has grown over the years, as Elizabeth Gabay MW, will, I’m sure, point out as producers have moved away from the saignée method of making rosé. But fundamentally, rosé, as in “I’ll have a glass of rosé,” has replaced “I’ll have a glass of Chardonnay” as shorthand for “I want a glass of wine—I don’t care to know anything else about it” in North America.

Let me be clear, I don’t have anything against rosé. In general, they are soundly made. However, when given the opportunity to drink rosé, I’d almost always prefer to drink something else—more on that later. So, in this debate, I’m not trying to bash rosé, I’m just attempting to explain why I think it’s popular.

Wine is complicated. Rosé is not.

In a nutshell, that’s why rosé is so popular. People want to drink wine because it’s au courant and seems sophisticated, but most people don’t want to expend the energy to learn about wine. Wine, in general, is complex and intimidating. Knowing about vintages, aging requirements, geographic names, producers, labels with foreign words are just a few of the things that make wine complicated. Ordering wine in a restaurant can be a nightmare. Is it from a good vintage? Is it ready to drink? Is it made by a good producer? Not to mention, how do you pronounce Vacqueryas? Most people are just not that interested in spending the requisite time to learn about wine, they simply want a “glass of wine.” Enter rosé.

Rosé is simple. It’s easy to order—I’ll have a glaass of rosé. No vintages to worry about, and it’s a word everyone can pronounce.

Assessing wine can be intimidating, and the reaction of people when you ask them what they think of a wine reminds me of seeing a deer in your headlights. It’s odd that people should be frightened to assess a wine; people easily critique movies or restaurants, but they’re scared to comment on wine for fear of “saying the wrong thing.” People can’t adequately articulate smells and tastes, so describing a wine is problematic for most. Furthermore, is that tannin-induced bitterness a good thing or a fault?

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these drinks if, and it is a big IF, it is not just colour but there is also a distinctive rosé fruit character. Regional wine styles which have moved from their own character to pale ‘Provence style’, contribute to a decline in the diversity of styles. Chiaretto di Bardolino and Bordeaux rosés being classic examples of wines which are going down the Provence-style path.

The problem comes back to colour. Always. Often, I’ve tasted rosé with professionals or consumers who cannot move from the colour question. But I would suggest that - while much rosé produced is merely a puff of pink hype - this wine style also has an intellectual and artistic beauty that is ignored by too many wine afi cionados.

Stepping back from the focus on pinkness, seeing rosé as a wine reveals a diff erent world. There are red fl ags - high yields, overly early harvesting, minimal skin-contact for minimal colour, and cold fermentation, which creates the palest of delicate rosés in a relatively uniform style.

Critics who condemn rosé as being all hype and no substance will often claim their preferred exceptions to be Tavel (appellation generically), Domaine Tempier from Bandol - always Tempier with no knowledge of other Bandol estates - Tondonia from Rioja, Garrus from Chateau d’Esclans in Provence and a range of oddments. Interestingly, these are all quite powerful rosés, many of which have been in oak, generally with ageing potential and mostly not pale. These critics do not limit their experience of an appellation’s reds or whites to one wine before forming an assessment.

The hype around colour obfuscates the search for these more complex rosés. Try googling “interesting rosé”, “complex rosé”, “diff erent rosé”, “natural rosé”, “darker rosé” - or any adjective other than “pale rosé.” All largely give a similar listing of the same rosés which dominate the market. No wonder it is diffi cult to expand the market for more diverse styles.

It is important to defi ne what a rosé is. If defi ned by colour alone - meaning the wine should be pink - many are so pale they could be defi ned as blanc de noir or white wine. At the other extreme, the copper onion-skin tones of some oaked or aged rosés closely resemble orange wines. And a few rosés are dark enough to appear a light red. L’Irréductible from Domaine de la Bégude in Bandol is dark cherry pink with lots of intense fruit, the complete antithesis of pale pink, but backed by the conviction of the winemaker that this is the best expression of Mourvedre rosé, succeeds.

My defi nition of rosé is based on two questions: Does the producer call it rosé? Is it made from a blend that includes red/black/ gris grapes that do not fi nish fermentation in contact with their skins? (Rosé des Riceys is a prime example of a rosé which includes a partial fermentation on the skins).

Good winemakers of all styles of wine are a creative crowd. They are busy exploring the possibilities of rosé, by playing with varieties, site selection, harvest dates, length of maceration, indigenous yeast (or at least very neutral yeast), temperature, vessels, ageing

Enter rosé. It’s simple to assess. The main criterion for its quality is color—and everyone can identify and describe colors. Moreover, the pretty pink against most any background makes it Instagram-ready.

In North America, much, perhaps most, wine is consumed as an aperitif, without food. That pattern of consumption requires a low-acid, round wine. The acidity in wine is critical to keep it fresh and lively through the entire meal. In contrast, without food, people gravitate to low acid wines that don’t scratch the palate. These “aperitif wines” also need to lack power or concentration.

Enter rosé. It’s simple to drink. Even if not subtly sweet, most rosé are round so there’s none of the aggressive acidity to deal with. And rosé is the antithesis of power.

In short, rosé is popular because it is easy. It’s easy to order. It’s easy to drink. It’s easy to assess. There are no bitter tannins, there’s no mouth-cleansing acidity. Mostly, there’s little taste, another plus for consumers who don’t like strong fl avors. Rosé is uncomplicated, unlike many wines.

An added attraction is that rosé is always served cold, and we Americans like cold drinks. A big complaint from Americans traveling to Europe in the summer is the lack of ice in drinks!

To me, rosé is akin to mindless television after a long, stressful day at work. Sometimes you just don’t want to think—you want to relax. Rosé is perfect in that setting because it doesn’t require any eff ort. Rosé provides everything consumers love about wine: social lubrication, the alcohol-induced buzz, and the relaxation it induces. All without straining the brain.

Now, when I say why bother with rosé, I’m speaking to the small, but ever-increasing, fraction of wine drinkers who enjoy wine for everything it has to off er—its complexities, its subtleties, its history, its story, its expressiveness, and how it changes with age or even in an hour as it sits in the glass.

Those captivated by wine love its near magical qualities, like the magic of terroir—why do two wines made from the same grape by the same winemaker taste diff erent? Why does Tempranillo taste so diff erent when planted in the Rioja compared to Ribera del Duero? What accounts for the fl avor development as it sits in the glass or rests in the cellar? Fruity fl avors morph into something else—earthy or leafy ones. Call them what you like, but where did they come from? I’m not speaking only of rarifi ed Bordeaux, or Premier, or Grand Cru Burgundy.

The same magic is true for Muscadet or Beaujolais, not prestigious appellations by any stretch. The variation of Muscadet depending on locale, Clisson versus Le Pallet, for example, is extraordinary. The range of the variation is equally dramatic in Beaujolais. Wines from each of the ten crus made by the same producer are unique because of where the Gamay grape was grown. Even within a single cru, wines from the diff erent lieux-dits of Moulin-àVent that Château des Jacques or Château des Moulin-à-Vent bottle are unique. But appreciating those magical qualities takes eff ort

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on lees, aged rosés. Cirque de Grives from Chateau la Gordonne in Provence, a non-oaked premium rosé fermented in concrete eggs, is powerful, intense, extracted, and extremely well made, full of ripe fruit and vibrant acidity. Pinot Grigio ramato, with its copper pink colour, can have texture and complexity but is accredited with orange wine trendiness while wines labelled Pinot Grigio Blush are relegated to being rosé. The off -dry rosés of Anjou are damned for the twin horrors of being pink and sweet, ignoring amazing examples of fi nely balanced fruit, sugar and acidity and their excellent food pairing ability. Producers struggle knowing that those who dismiss their rosés are quick to praise their sweet Coteaux du Layon.

Start exploring rosé like this and there is a world of exceptional wines worthy of hype.

This is where I fi nd rosé really exciting. The sense of exploration and discovery. The more rosé is dismissed as over-hyped with no substance, the more I am delighted to discover a wine which intrigues and surprises. Not all of the experiments work, and they are far from rivalling the grand crus of the world, but there is something vibrantly exciting about the exploration of a wine style no one else is considering, of being made to think how a wine is defi ned.

The ‘hype’ may be nothing more than a successful marketing campaign which created and fed into a fashion trend, but it would not have succeeded without the quality of wine behind it. Is there substance and validity to the category? Defi nitely! Those who dismiss rosé based on their marketing image need to see rosé not through pink tinted glasses, but with the eyes of a wine lover, and explore beyond the obvious. Rosé is more than just a wine with too much marketing. and study. Most people who drink wine don’t want to make that investment. They just want a glass of wine. I get it. Enter rosé.

Certainly, on a hot day in the sun-drenched south of France a cool rosé is a welcome addition to a salad Niçoise. And sometimes, as noted West Coast wine writer Blake Gray points out, even wine enthusiasts occasionally want an “uncomplicated” wine—a rosé— when having BBQ in the summer. I understand that, but I argue that there are a bunch of other wines that are far more interesting and deliver more character than rosé. How about chilling a light red, such as a simple Beaujolais or Beaujolais-Villages (wines from the crus don’t take a chill so well)? How about a Valpolicella or Bardolino, or a Côtes du Ventoux? Why not a Côtes du Rhone or a light Barbera from Piedmont?

And what’s wrong with white wines? How about a Pinot de Picpoul? Possibly a Vermentino from Sardinia or from Liguria? There are also a bevy of Greek whites, such as Assyrtiko, Malagouzia, or Moschofi lero that will do the trick, as well as an Albariño from Rías Baixas or a Verdejo from Rueda. Maybe take a look at a German Kabinett from the Mosel-Saar-Ruwer. As a group, these are all refreshing wines that deliver more pleasure than a rosé whether enjoyed at the table or as a stand-alone aperitive.

True, you need to have spent some energy to learn about these hard-to-pronounce, less well-known grapes or areas, which is why, “I’ll have a glass of rosé” is so popular.