I’ve said it before, but I’ll say it again: good value is not the same as cheap. In fact, the French have the perfect description for it: qualité/prix, meaning good quality for the price. That applies to rosé as much as it does to any other colour of wine, if not even more so. There are under-£5 reds and whites out there that are really outstanding bargains (Tesco’s 2022 Vista Castelli Trebbiano d’Abruzzo at £4.25 being a case in point), but I’m hard pushed to think of any sub-£5 rosé that rocks my boat. That’s rare even under £7, although Aldi, as ever, manages to achieve it (see today’s pick).
Cheap rosés tend to taste confected, bubble-gummy and often too sweet, both for my tastes and, it seems, the market generally: Californian rosé sales are down 20% over the past year, a Tesco spokesperson tells me, while French rosé is up 7%, which suggests that people now prefer the fashionably pale dry style of rosé they make in Provence.
