Tag Archives: rose

Another Concert on the Green; Another Rosé

A great thing that’s happened in the last few years, in the small towns of the Bay Area, is adding casual concerts to weeknight farmers’ markets. In our area, our town of Windsor does this, as does Healdsburg, Sebastopol, Santa Rosa and probably others that I don’t know about and haven’t had time to explore yet.

Summer concert on the Windsor Green

Summer concert on the Windsor Green

For us, the Windsor Green is about a 5 minute drive. It takes more time to find a parking space for the Thursday evening market/concert than to drive there. Most recently, we went and heard a swing band, which had the audience dancing in the square. Swing dancing is not in my skill set, or Lori’s, but we enjoyed listening, and watching the dancers. We also enjoyed the food available from the market, plus there was paella available from Castañeda’s Market, a local market owned by our new neighbors. (To be clear, we’re the new ones in the neighborhood; they’ve been there for a number of years.) If you want paella catered for your event, you should check out their Paella Guy website.

Windwalker 2012 Grenache Rosé

Windwalker 2012 Grenache Rosé

We also enjoyed the bottle of Windwalker Vineyard 2012 Grenache Rosé, from El Dorado County in the Sierra Foothills. We visited Windwalker a few years back. Loved the winery grounds; just beautiful setting in the foothills and excellent event facilities. We thought most of their wines were good but not great; however we really liked the rosé. So we purchased a few bottles. A good rosé, one where the grapes are picked specifically for the rosé and not just made from juice bled off the red wine, can last a few years in the bottle and be excellent for a Spring/Summer picnic (or a Summer concert!). (If you’re interested, I’ve written about rosés before in this space, just go use the search function on the right side of the page.)

This was just such a wine. Grenache is most often used for rosé’s in France, as it has just enough flavor and body to make a good light wine, plus if picked right has the acid to go with foods. This wine reminded me of a lunch Lori and I had at a sidewalk café in Nice, France, somewhere around 2001, which featured a nice bottle of rosé. A great memory from that trip, but also a great new memory made of music, food and wine close to home.

L’Chaim,

Larry

More Pink, Now For Summer

I talked about rosés before, using them as a sign of Spring. Well, rosés are equally good, if not better, for Summer. Good rosés are cold, crisp, light, flavorful; everything I want on a warm day sitting outside. It might not be what you drink with your barbequed meal, but it’s what you drink until the meal is ready.

Here are a few that we’ve had recently that we really liked:

Bonny Doon Vineyard, 2014 Vin Gris de Cigare, 35% grenache, 18% mourvèdre, 16% grenache blanc, 12.5% roussanne, 8% carignane, 8% cinsaut, 1.5% marsanne, 1% counoise
Dragonette Cellars, 2013 Rosé, Happy Canyon (Santa Barbara County), 70% grenache, 25% mourvèdre, 5% syrah
Windwalker Vineyard, 2012 Grenache Rosé, El Dorado County (Sierra Foothills)

No accident that these are all made from Rhône grapes. These grapes typically have the fruit, the acid and the body to not get washed out in a light rosé. These are the grapes traditionally used for rosés in France.

The Bonny Doon was brought over to our friends’ house for a recent barbeque get together. Appetizers served that afternoon included salsa and guacamole, and grilled shrimp. Bonny Doon has been making Rhône varietal wines since the beginning, and Randall Grahm is one of the Rhône pioneers in California. This was delicious.

2013 Dragonette Cellars Rosé

2013 Dragonette Cellars Rosé


The Dragonette was opened at my parents’ house a few weeks ago, just as an afternoon drinking wine. I had never had it before, and now I’m looking forward to visiting the Dragonette tasting room in Los Olivos (Santa Ynez Valley) when Lori and I vacation there later this month.

Windwalker Vineyard 2012 Grenache Rosé, El Dorado County

Windwalker Vineyard 2012 Grenache Rosé, El Dorado County

The Windwalker we picked up on a wine tasting run through the Sierra Foothills while visiting Lori’s mother, who lives in the area. (Winery visits are not the only reason I visit my mother-in-law. Really.) Another Grenache based rose, with about 70% of that varietal as the base. Again just opened as an afternoon drinking wine, and hit all the right points.

L’Chaim,

Larry

Rosé on the Table Means Spring is Here

First rosé of the season last night: Deerfield Ranch Winery 2012 Checkerbloom Rosé, Sonoma County, made from their old vine Zinfandel grapes using the Saignée method. Delicious with baked salmon, rice and baby bok choy.

In the U.S., we’ve been brought up thinking that rosés are sweet, second rate wines. Actually that’s been true for the U.S., but not so for the rest of the world where rosés have historically been regarded as mainstream wines, worthy of as much attention and respect as any other serious wine. Recently, many more wineries are making good rosés, and a lot of us are buying and drinking rosés. So what is it about rosés that is so attractive?

For me, a good rosé is an alternative to a white wine. Whenever I think of crisp, fruity white wine to drink, I’ll also check out our stock of rosés. Because that is what a good rosé should be: crisp, fruity, some acid for balance, very similar to a good Sauvignon Blanc but with different fruit flavors.

Rosés are most often made by having the grape juice from red wine grapes stay in contact with the skins for 1-3 days, instead of the usual 1-2 weeks used for red wine production. The longer the juice is in contact with the skins, the deeper pink/red the color. One other technique used is the Saignée method, in which some of the juice is bled off from the tank containing the skins and juice from a red wine. Less juice means a higher ratio of skins to juice, resulting in more intense flavor and color for the red wine. So as not to waste the good juice that has been bled off, it is made into its own rosé wine. A third technique is called Vin Gris. With this method the juice from red grapes is taken when the grapes are being pressed, so there is really no time on the skins, resulting in a very pale rosé.

What to look for in a rosé? Here are my two unofficial rules, plus one question.

1. No rosé made from Pinot Noir grapes. Sorry, I know some people like these rosés, and a number of wineries make rosés from Pinot Noir, but the fruit flavors in Pinot Noir grapes are too subdued to make a good rosé. There are exceptions to this rule, as there are to any rule, however while I have liked a few rosés made from Pinot Noir, I can’t think of any of them right now. Very non-memorable.

2. Make sure the grapes were picked specifically to make the rosé wine. One of the realities of the wine business is that red wines take a year or more from harvest to cash generation. Rosés can be ready for the consumer in 4 months. So wineries are often making rosé just for cash flow reasons, and not because they’re committed to make a good rosé. In which case, they most often will bleed off some juice from their red wine tanks after 1-3 days on the skins, and make rosé from that. The problem is that acid and sugar levels for a good rosé are different than for a good red wine.

3. Another good question to ask is how many years has the winery been producing rosés? While an answer of less than 5 years doesn’t say anything about how serious the winery is about their rosé, an answer of 10+ years says that they’re serious and successful.

One other note is that most of the good rosés in France are made from Rhone grapes, most often Grenache. For Lori and I, our introduction to seriously good rosé was having it with lunch at a sidewalk café in summer in Nice, France. Beautiful warm day, cool-crisp-tasty wine, watching the world go by.

There are two rosés that I’ll always say yes to: Storybook Mountain Vineyards “Zin Gris” rosé of Zinfandel (a nice play on vin gris), and Quivera Vineyards Rosé, usually based on Grenache. These wineries have been doing rosés for 10+ years, and they do a consistently outstanding job of it.

One other memorable rosé I’ve had was the 2013 Derby Wine Estates Rosé, Derby Wine Estates, made from 100% Mouvedre. Almost ruby red in color, nice balance, went great with the hummus, tabbouleh, baba ghanoush, dolmas and pita bread appetizers that I brought for our picnic before a California Shakespeare Festival performance of A Midsummer Night’s Dream last year. (Great performance, the best performance of this play I’ve ever seen.)

Enjoy your Spring!

L’Chaim,

Larry