You may think, as winter ends, that I'd be up to my eyelids in big, rib-sticking, cockle-warming, timber-shivering red wines -- but no. I'm looking spring-ward, hoping desperately that soon I'll be kissing goodbye to woolly tights and pasty, goose-bumpy skin. A great way to help channel blossoms, daffodils and gambolling lambs I've realised, is to simply sip rosé.
There's something about a glass of something gorgeously pink that lifts my mood every time. And yet it's this pinkish hue, which unfortunately demotes it to the "don't go there" list for many people. Okay, by "many people" I mean men. Over the years, all the men I've questioned regarding their rosé reluctance have said that it's because they thought pink meant sweet and a bit simple. And, truth be told, some of them are (insert memories of Mateus rosé here), but that's no reason to ignore them all.
Thanks to the added bonus of being crafted from red wine, rosés can still have fat, full, generous flavour profiles, which makes them super-versatile when it comes to food matching. One of my favourite things to pair with rosé is watermelon, feta, black olive and basil salad; it's also brilliant with steamed prawn and pork dumplings.
Many people still assume rose simply a white wine that's had a squirt of red wine added to it. Not so. These days they're almost always crafted from reds. So if rose are made from the same grapes that give us our gutsy favourites like cabernet sauvignon, merlot, syrah and pinot noir - how come they're so pale and pink and not dark and densely coloured? Think of it like an adult movie (go with me here) in that it's all about skin contact. If you squeeze a red grape, the juice inside is actually white. Red wines get their colour by mixing that juice with the skins for a shorter period of time for a "light" (harmless fun) blush of colour, longer for deep, penetrating, x-rated redness. The rosés I've chosen to show you this week are really interesting examples sourced from all over the country -- and if you're still adverse to a bit of pink? My advice is pour yourself a glass, put on a blindfold and prepare to be wowed.
