Ramón Bilbao Rosado, Rioja, Spain 2021 (£8, Tesco) Given that it now accounts for more than 11% of all the wine consumed around the world each year, you might think we wine writers should talk about rosé wine a little more often. Properly represented, at least one in ten of the bottles we recommend should be pink; in reality (at least in these pages) it’s more like one in a hundred. Why is that? To me it’s to do with the stylistic parameters of rosé wine: the distance between the two extremes of the rosé spectrum is so much narrower than the equivalent in red and white, which makes it much harder to write about. But it also has something to do with rosé’s being so tied to a season: the fact that a beaded bottle of pastel-shaded, delicately strawberry-scented rosado, such as Ramón Bilbao’s pristine example, is precisely 1,000% more attractive when the sun is out.
Weingut Winter Pinot Noir Rosé, Rheinhessen, Germany 2020 (£17.50, swig.co.uk) Curiously enough, rosé’s enormous rise in popularity (up by more than 40% since the start of the century) has coincided with a rapid narrowing of its stylistic range. Whereas once you’d look at a lineup of rosés from around the world and see a colour chart satisfyingly and evenly graded through the shades from the very dark and red wine-like to the almost imperceptibly coppery pink, most rosés today are made to look and taste like the delicate, onion-skin prototype patented by Provence. It’s a devastatingly effective formula, and the best Provence producers remain the best at rendering its subtly watercoloured charms: the mix of quicksilver prettiness and gentle creaminess in top-end Provence rosés such as Miraval Sainte Victoire 2021 (£24, Waitrose) really does make them stand out from the crowd. But good rosés can come from anywhere these days: Stefan Winter’s pale but zingily succulent peach-and-mandarin-zesty pink pinot, for example, is one of several distinctive and delicious offerings I’ve tasted recently from Germany.
Myrtia Moschofilero Assyrtiko Rosé, Peloponnese, Greece 2021 (£10, Marks & Spencer) One way of standing out from the Provence-imitating pink crowd is to use grape varieties that are naturally more irrepressibly aromatic than those used in the classic Provence recipe. The muscat-like grapey-floral, pine and mint aromas of the Greek grape moschofilero, combined with the lemon-skin tang and nervy vibrancy of assyrtiko, make for something altogether unusual and lemon-grove evocative in the Myrtia rosé. The distinctiveness of another pink M&S newcomer, Lark Song English Rosé 2021, from England’s Balfour Winery in Kent (£12), by contrast, owes more to geography: it’s got the distinctive trilling acidity of a cool northerly winemaking climate and stands out for its enlivening raciness and red apple bite. For value, meanwhile, I’ve found Provence’s southern French neighbours offer the most compelling Provencal-style pinks south of a tenner: Casanova Costa d’Oru Corsican Rosé 2021 (£7.50, The Co-op) blends the local sciacerellu and Niellucciu with syrah and grenache for a Med-breezy waft of soft strawberry and cream.
Follow David Williams on Twitter @Daveydaibach
