Days of wine and rosés

Rosé, like Champagne, is a wine that signifies more than just a drink. Champagne is shorthand for victory, celebration, excess even. Rosé shares some of Champagne's sense of occasion – it's a wine that has strong associations with the sun, the coming of summer, frivolity, holidays and some of the glamour of the Côte d'Azur.

When I hear the pop of a Champagne cork, I immediately wonder what the occasion is that's being celebrated. Similarly, when I see someone enjoying a glass of rosé, especially if the sun is out, I feel that I would like to share some of that carefree, holiday spirit.

Nowadays, with the ubiquity of pink wines, you can pick up a bottle of rosé made almost anywhere in the world, but Provence in the south of France can claim to have the longest tradition of making it. Grapes were probably brought here by the ancient Greeks to the colony they founded in Marseille in around 600BC. While we have no real way of knowing what style of wines they made, the Provençals are nevertheless keen to promote the idea that these first wines were also pink – so Provence has a claim to be the ancient birthplace of rosé.

Winemakers there are specialists in the art of making rosé – and they get lots of practice at it too, as 88% of wine production from southern Provence is rosé. Red wines account for just 9% and whites a measly 3%.

Provence is the only wine region in the world that specialises in the production of rosé and, despite its frivolous image, winemakers there take it very seriously. That typical pale negligée pink of a Provence rosé is a result of giving the red skinned grapes (usually predominantly Grenache, Syrah and Cinsault) a short period (as little as 45 minutes in some cases) of maceration after crushing. During that time the skins transfer some of their colour and flavours to the juice of the grapes. After maceration the grapes are pressed and the resulting pink juice is fermented into wine.

Of the legions of more deeply-coloured pink wines that adorn our supermarket and wine merchant shelves many are made by a different method, known as saignée, or bleeding. Here red grapes are lightly crushed to rupture the skins and put into a vat. The free run juice is run off from the bottom of the tank and then fermented. The really clever thing about this method is that the winemaker can get a bonus wine, a BOGOF, in the process. After running off the juice and fermenting it he will have a more or less deep-coloured pink wine. But he will also have the option to make a red wine made from the juice and grapes that remain after the saignée. This red wine – and this is the really clever part – will have been given additional concentration and fruit intensity due to the separation of the lighter coloured juice first.

While I can't fault the clever marketing that allows winemakers to produce two wines from a single batch of grapes, it's important to realise that rosés made this way will always be a different beast from their paler pink Provençal cousins. In Provence, the grapes that make rose have been selected, grown and made into wine with the single intention of making a pink wine. The gentle maceration period is also thought to produce a more subtle range of aromas and flavours than the saignée method.

Recommended Provence roses

Famille Négrel, Côtes de Provence Sainte Victoire 2010 - £9.99 from Majestic

Still relatively pale for a rosé, but with more richness and sappy fruit than lighter Provence styles, this is one to crack open with a meal. Salad niçoise would be a joy with this.

Château de Berne, Côtes de Provence Grande Récolte 2011, £9.99 from Majestic

On its own this wine impresses with its pure linearity. But with food the palate opens up and is able to cope with a wide range of foods. It even managed the seemingly impossible task of standing up to steak. A great all rounder rosé.

Château de Galoupet, Côtes de Provence Cru Classé 2010, £13.08 (for a 50cl bottle) from London Wine Shippers

This wine is a great illustration of the canny knack that Provence rosés have of being pale and delicate, yet having plenty of lingering flavour. I'd recommend this one for crab, or any other full-flavoured seafood.

Aix, Côteaux d'Aix en Provence 2011 - £19.99 for a magnum at Majestic

Clearly marketing is a strong suit with Eric Kurver, the Dutch owner of this domaine. His stated ambition on taking up winemaking five years ago was “to make the best rosé in the world” - I wonder how many people take up wine with the aim of producing a so-so wine? The masterstroke of bottling this in 1.5 litre magnums, with a bold label makes this a statement wine to bring out for summer celebrations. Luckily, the wine lives up to its own hype (leaving aside the best in the world moniker): fully dry, structured, and refreshing with plenty of lively grapefruit acidity.

Domaine OTT, Clos Mireille Coeur de Grain 2010, £27.95 from Roberson Wine

No discussion of Provence rosés is complete without the daddy of ambitious (with price tag to match) wines – Domaine OTT. This is a minimalist wine: pale, with a delicate, floral nose and a palate that is soft, savoury, peppery and persistent. Fine, refreshing stuff. 

  

Every day is Mother's Day

This Sunday, in case you need reminding, is Mother's Day. And yes, technically this is a religious festival and the mother in question is supposed to be the mother church. But try that line with the mum in your family, as you explain that there is no lie-in, breakfast in bed, slap up lunch or just a cheery bunch of flowers to look forward to and, well...don't say we didn't warn you.

A popular choice, at least in the two Heathers' households, is a nice bottle of something – and preferably something with a bit of sparkle to it. If you would like to follow suit, then in the interests of familial harmony, Heather D has conducted some entirely unscientific research on your behalf, to help guide you in your purchases.

A crack team of highly qualified tasters was assembled, ready to pit their finely tuned tastebuds against a selection of five popular pink fizzes, ranging in price from £7 to £37. In order for our, ahem, research session to stand up to scientific scrutiny, the wines were all tasted blind, so that the tasters did not know what they were drinking. The mums (for that was the entry qualification for this taste-off) slurped, sniffed and failed to spit out all the wines on your behalf and the results are produced here.

Good news, bad news

First the bad news – there were two pink Champagnes in our line-up and they came in first and second place in our results table. Top of the fizzy pops was Moët & Chandon Brut Rosé NV (RRP £36.99), followed by Veuve Clicquot Brut Rosé NV (same price). The mums rated these two above the others for their “light” and “dry” style, with some detecting a hint of blackcurrant in the Moët. A couple found a slight bitter aftertaste in the Veuve, but obviously found it pretty attractive overall.

The good news for hard up sons and daughters is that equal second place in the line-up was Jacob's Creek Sparkling Rosé, around £9.49 and widely available. “Very drinkable” was a phrase that cropped up when discussing this wine – though, come to think of it, “very drinkable” cropped up quite a bit throughout the tasting...hmmm.

Cava is often the fizz we go for when we're in a hurry, but can't afford the posh stuff. However, Sainsbury's Taste the Difference Cava Rosada Brut Vintage (£7.99) was lacklustre on the night: “watery” and “crude” were just a couple of the damning comments it drew.

However disappointing the Cava, however, it did trounce the Millione Vino Frizzante from Italy (£7.97 from Sainsbury's and elsewhere). It's the kind of wine that you want to like, as it is a social enterprise, where each bottle sold contributes to humanitarian projects in Sierra Leone. Buying it might make you feel good, but drinking it, perhaps less so, if the comments of our tasters are anything to go by: “strange” and the pithily concise “yuk”.

The moral, dear readers: a bottle of Jacob's Creek would undoubtedly be welcome, but a smart pink Champagne has it beaten on looks and taste. And if the mum in your life appreciates the good things in life, the ultimate pink fizz is Bollinger Grande Année Rosé 2002, £85 from Selfridges. Pale salmon in colour, the lively strawberry fruit and hints of rose petals draw you in. Delicate, but with great depth of flavour, wonderful to sip on its own, yet equally lovely with suitably elegant food. Definitely a grand gesture wine, but you might get to share it, don't forget!

Along with the fizz, a favourite gift to accompany is a bunch of flowers – and sorry, our remit doesn't go as far as testing garage forecourt bunches versus an artistic creation from a proper florist. However, if you're plumping for that other standby, a box of choccies, then we are your, er, men.

In fact, the indefatigable Heather D went to far as to attend a wine and chocolate tasting – purely in the interests of research you understand. There were some brave matches (which is code for uh, no), including a pretty dry Riesling with an almond-cream filled milk chocolate. In our experience milk chocolate is so mouth-coatingly sweet that it's a tall order for any wine, red, white or fizzy to get along with it.

Much more successful is a really fruity red wine with dark chocolate – so the lady may love Milk Tray, but perhaps she should give Black Magic a try if she also likes a glass of red wine. We tried a dark chocolate praline with 2008 Penfold's Koonunga Hill 76 Shiraz Cabernet (RRP £10), which accomplished the neat trick of toning down the exuberant fruit of the wine and making the chocolate taste less sweet too.

However, the best match of the night was an Australian version of Tawny Port, served in this case with a ganache-filled dark chocolate – though I suspect just about any chocolate would work. The sweetness, power and layered nutty complexity of Tawny Port is THE wine to choose if you want to find a match made in heaven for your box of chocs. The Australian version we tasted is not currently available in the UK, but a 20 year old Tawny Port will have the right depth of raisin, nut and caramel flavours. The big names such as Graham's or Taylor's 20 year old tawnies are widely available for around £35. If your budget doesn't stretch that far, then a 10 year old such as Warre's Otima, widely available for around £13 for a 50cl bottle, may not have all the exquisite depth, but delivers plenty of rich nuttiness for the price.

A bunch of rosés

The psychology of summer: sunlight lifting the spirits, warm days, short nights, perfumed gardens, the happy social scene, the lightness of being; and sipping rosé wine.

We Brits have taken to the pink drink like the proverbial ducks to water and many of the bottles we buy are slung into the supermarket trolley along with our sausages, burgers and beans. There's nothing wrong with this, but it can be much more satisfying to search out quality and diversity and to buy from people who can advise you, and often give you a tasting too: our local independent wine merchants.

We are really lucky in the Guildford area to have three good wine shops, run by knowledgeable staff who are in the business because they love their product.

Our quest this week:  to find the perfect rosé wine, so we asked them all to recommend rosés that they thought were good value and that they felt happy to represent as their choice.

Rupert Pritchett of Taurus Wines near Bramley belies his years, as he tells us he has “been around for a long, long time”! It is a delightful experience to visit Rupert in his converted cowshed at Whipley Farm. Useful too, as, after stocking up on the wines, you can buy your animal feed next door. We were offered a whole host of rosés to try, but decided on one classic Provençal and one trendily dark-skinned Chilean.

M de Minuty 2009 is £12.99 and has the lovely and distinctive shapely bottle of Provence rosés, which was modelled, of course, on a woman. Or more prosaically it could be said to have a handy waist to hold on to. In southern France wine is often drunk “on the rocks”, further diluting the alcoholic content and flavour, so the fine but clear acidity of this wine has to be well pronounced to hold up to this treatment. The quintessentially Provençal pale shell pink colour, aromas of rose petals and flat stones baked by the sun and a clean minerality combine to make this a taste of holidays. Drink with or without food - great with grilled fish.

Torres Santa Digna Cabernet Sauvignon Rosé - £7.99. The Torres family name has been linked with Spanish wine for more than three centuries and in 1979 they opened a winery in the wine-grower's paradise of Chile. This rosé is a pale cherry colour with intense and exuberant aromas of red fruit and a hint of blackcurrant. It still retains Spanish roots and makes a great marriage with tapas, salamis - or butterflied lamb on the barbecue.

“Real men drink rosé” is a sentiment that Ben Watkins of The Guildford Wine Company in Shalford subscribes to and he is happy to prove this with his wide range of samples chilled and ready to taste.

His Les Cerisiers Côtes du Rhône Rosé- £8.49 or £6.99 if you buy 2 bottles is not as pale as a Provençal rosé and has more oomph. The weighty stone fruit and herbal flavours, together with a definite acidity, show this wine means business.

Canforrales Garnacha Rosado 2009 from La Mancha in Spain, £7.99 a bottle, is a lively translucent red, just the shade of Heather A's favourite lipgloss. Its delicate bouquet of tinned strawberries might not sound complimentary, but is a classic description of garnacha-based wines and rather delightful. It has a robust dryness and is the rosé to accompany barbecued bangers – a bloke's rosé.

“And now for something completely different”, Ben brought out a dinky little half-bottle called Innocent Bystander (£5.99), an Australian sparkling pink muscat. This quirky wine, crown-capped like a beer bottle, is bursting with effervescent tutti -frutti flavours and would be a wonderful gimmick to bring out for parties....with a straw! Sweet, pink, fizzy and only 5.5% alcohol, it could be just the thing to splash around with a picnic fruit salad.

Les Caves De Pyrène on the Old Portsmouth Road, Artington, always seem to be in a state of chaotic upheaval , but then “busy” is their middle name as one of the premiere suppliers to the restaurant trade, including Terroirs, their own vinous eatery in London. Our man on the spot, Adrian Scholes, when not engaged in endlessly complex conversations with suppliers and clients, unfailingly guides us towards unusual items for our opinion.

Unusual is perhaps just one of the first words that comes to mind when sipping Alquézar Tempranillo-Garnacha Rosado 2009, £7.99 a bottle. The colour and flavours call to mind sour cherries, so an acquired taste or perhaps one for those who want to get away from the “cute” label of many rosés. Treat it more like a summer red that you can chill down for full-flavoured refreshment.

By contrast and oh, such an easy quaff, is Bergerie de la Bastide Vin de Pays d’Oc Rosé 2009 - £6.49. A delicate shade of pink with good, balanced acidity, light and floral, but not at all cloying. Easy and undemanding drinking.

Do seek out your own local wine merchants, buy from a real person and you will get so much more enjoyment from your wine shopping.


Think pink
Most rosé wines are made pink in one of two ways:

• Lightly crushing black grapes and letting the grape flesh remain in contact with the skins for just long enough to colour the juice pink
• Blending in some red wine to some white wine, to make pink. Sounds simple (not to mention cheap) but this is the way that most pink Champagne is made
•  Always seek out the most recent vintage of rosés, as they don't improve with age. Look for 2009’s Europe and California – and we will soon be moving onto 2010s from the southern hemisphere.