Arbousset Tavel Rosé, Rhône, France 2021 (£12, Tesco) Most rosés these days are made by winemakers attempting to mimic the vignerons of Provence, who, commercially speaking, have been by far the most successful producers of pink wines in the world over the past 20 years or so. At its best, the Provence way is all about subtlety: it comes in pastel or washed-out watercolour shades, with a moreish creaminess and gently, deftly sketched red fruit that can be irresistible at the height of summer. The problem is that the style, whether made in its traditional home or by imitators all over the world, has become so successful, so prolific, it’s edged out other styles of pink wine. When you look at a range of rosés on a supermarket shelf these days, their colour proudly displayed in clear glass bottles in shapes and sizes inspired by the perfume industry, the majority are studies in the palest pink, with flavours to match. If for no other reason than a change is as good as a rest, then, I find myself increasingly drawn to the rare deep, dark pink of a rosé such as Arbousset Tavel.
Rosé de Thymiopoulos, Naoussa, Greece 2013 (£30, thewinesociety.com) Tavel is a rosé-only winemaking appellation slightly to the north of the pale pink Provence heartland in the Southern Rhône Valley. Here rosés have always tended to be more robustly flavoured and darker-hued than their southern Provençal peers. They have more weight and density too and, in Arbousset’s case, ripe, primary-coloured strawberry and raspberry leavened with refreshing rosehip tang and pulse: a good match for the dishes on the milder end of a traditional British curry house menu. Tavel’s vignerons aren’t the only people attempting to conserve a different way of rosé. By far the most interesting and complex rosé I’ve tried in recent times is made from local red grape xinomavro by the inventive Greek winemaker Apostolos Thymiopoulos. Unusually for a rosé, it’s been aged for almost a decade, in a mixture of stainless steel tank and oak barrels: it’s gently grippy in texture, with notes of dried citrus peel and tangy cherry, and it’s superbly versatile at the dinner table.
Adnams Central Otago Pinot Noir, New Zealand 2019 (£19.99, adnams.co.uk) The darker rosé gets, the more we might feel it’s basically a red wine. And in fact, the dividing line between the two styles isn’t really all that defined. Both, after all, are made from red grapes, the key difference really is the amount of time those grapes spend in contact with the skins, which (in all but a handful of red grape varieties) is where all the colour comes from, as well as the tannins that give red wines their drying, grippy character. Some red wines, such as the delectably lithe of tannin and red fruit-juicy Adnams Central Otago Pinot Noir, have a lightness of colour and style that is closer to the appeal of a rosé than a big bold Aussie shiraz. The effortlessly crunchy-curranty Roc Clairet 2020 (£14.99, laithwaites.co.uk), meanwhile, is a successful revival of an old-fashioned Bordeaux style known as clairet in which the colour and texture is weightier than any rosé, but lighter than any red, and which is its own compulsively drinkable thing.
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