I don’t know if anyone else remembers rose’ wines as sweet, pink, disreputable, but really good on a hot day – a guilty pleasure. Maybe your parents, like mine, had one of those pottery bottles of Portuguese rose’ and felt quite continental with it. Well, it looks like rose’s reputation is on the rise. Wine prophets are predicting that one in five (1 in 5!) bottles of wine sold in France this year will be rose’; could be that rose’ sales will exceed white wine sales. Apparently, young French wine drinkers just want to have a good time with a happy drink and aren’t at all worried about appearing sophisticated. The good news is that wine makers are flowing with the times, so to speak, and creating drier, refreshing wines – but still pretty and pink.
In summer, what could be nicer than a day at the beach or in a park or a forest, coming home a little sweaty and salty, getting clean and cooled off, and then, as the scent of barbecuing something wafts over the deck or the lawn (a little rosemary, a little lavender, a little garlic), hoisting a chillled, sweating glass of wine that captures the glow of the sunset and of the day?
Drink up!