Life is too short to not enjoy a good pink and the 2012s are out in their rosé coloured glory.
There is a misconception that rosé wines are sweet – which goes without saying really, is completely untrue. More delicate than most red wines with more body and intensity of most whites – rosé fills the gap providing refreshment, texture and enjoyment at both ends of the sweetness spectrum. They are elegant enough not to overwhelm and as such Rosés make good food wines.
Rosé in Australia is made from a wide variety of grape varieties – grenache, shiraz, cabernet sauvignon, sangiovese, merlot and pinot noir to name some of the more common ones. With the innovative Rosé Revolution campaign to reawaken us to the joys of drier rose, it is true that there is still a need for a tool on the bottle or cue in the bottle on the sweetness level of a rosé.
Part of the revolution has been a call for producers to follow the French in making dry rosé a more delicate pink. My preference would be a sweetness scale on the back label although I do love the delicate colour of a pale pink provided the wine has the texture and body to match. However, until a method is widely adopted, you will have to put your trust in the backs of labels and your own experience to choose your level of sweetness.
Of course, there are plenty of sweet delights to be found as well. In particular, pink moscato is still ‘hot’ this summer offering bubbles of delight with refreshing acid and rating high on the pretty scale. The best are made from the white muscat grapes coloured with some red. Many of these moscatos offer more than simple fruit. If you push the budget just a little, you will be rewarded with Spring in a glass with scents of floral bouquets, Turkish delight & musk.
These grapey moscato wines are more versatile than you think. Yes, they are a crowd pleaser by themselves, and it is logical that they work brilliantly with fruity desserts. Simply because I was loathe to give up my glass one night, I discovered that I quite enjoyed my Pizzini Brachetto with Beef Fajitas (no sour cream please!). Now, I am not recommending that you drink your moscato with your next beef wellington and my fajitas were light on the beef. I am just saying that they can be robust enough to tackle chilli. I will leave you to your own experimentation.
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