The wines were received as samples from the winery or a marketing association.
We’ve been spending the whole week in London and Oxford, and the weather has been startlingly gorgeous: temperatures in the high 20s Celsius, barely any rain. I don’t think I have ever seen the UK like this…with temperatures like this, I find myself reaching for Rosés, fulfilling every Rosé stereotype: that they are only really good when it’s warm and you can drink them very well chilled. In fact there are a lot more uses for these types of wine, and I acknowledge them, but to me a Rosé still tastes best in the summer…
Over the last months, I received a couple of samples and I was particularly impressed by these two:
Piattelli Premium Malbec Rosé
2013 Piattelli Vineyards Premium Reserve Rosé of Malbec
Piattelli Vineyards is an Argentinian winery with holdings on the Eastern side of the Andes in Mendoza and Salta whose head oenologist is Valeria Antolin. This particular wine was made with 91% Malbec and 9% Torrontés (a white grape) grapes and has 14% ABV. I tried it as part of #BevChat, a Twitter tasting, in May. The wine poured (as you can see) in a bright red that I would describe as watermelon color. The nose offered roses and melon aromas, and was enticing. On the palate, this presented itself as a serious wine, pretty heavy with not much acidity. It felt much more like a light red than a heavy white, if you know what I mean. It had pretty good balance and not much fruit. The main reason I like this particular wine is that it pairs great with a BBQ, THE summer food. It has the heft to stand up to these charred aromas, and is still fresh. Someone else tried it with a sausage and mushroom pizza and was also seriously impressed. This is not your easy-peasy Rosé you can grab for a few bucks at the liquor store, but it shows what Rosé can be capable of. Retails for between $8 and $14.
Cline Cellars Rosé
Cline Cellars 2013 Mourvèdre Rosé Contra Costa County
I tried this wine as part of a #WineChat hosted by Protocol Wine Studios and received the wine as a sample from Cline Cellars. Cline Cellars has a reputation for producing Rhone-style wines in California, and as it happens, Mourvèdre is a standard Rhone grape but is rare to find in California. The wine has 13.5% ABV and 8.1 grams of residual sugar per liter. The special thing about this Rosé is that the grapes come from vines that are a century old, which is not normally material for a Rosé. It shows that Cline Cellars takes this wine seriously. The way the wine is made is as a blanc de noir, basically a white wine made from red grapes. Let me just say that I loved this wine. It was wonderfully full of raspberry aromas with some floral elements, and it was just super fresh and great. Nice acidity keeps it lively, and the hint of sweetness makes for great drinkability. Retails for between $10 and $14.
And while we’re talking Cline Cellars, let me add a non-Rosé to the mix:
Cline Cool Climate Pinot Noir (Photo credit: http://www.wine-searcher.com)
Cline Cellars 2012 Cool Climate Pinot Noir Sonoma Coast
This wine was part of the Cline Cellars tasting, and if you know me, you might have picked up on my weariness when it comes to California Pinot Noir, which I often find too strong, too intense, too fruity. Well, not this one, let me tell you. At 14.5% ABV it is definitely a tad higher than I would wish for in a Pinot Noir, but the wine’s aromas totally made up for it: In the glass, this Pinot Noir was prune colored. The nose gave away raspberry, cherry, white cake batter, and was slightly perfumy. An intriguing mix of aromas. On the palate, the wine was a bit smoky, showed aromas of cocoa and cherry and just great acidity! Someone wasn’t shying away from it in a very good way. There was also enough forest aromas in the wine to make it recognizable as a Pinot Noir, but it wore its New World colors proudly. A great mix, in my book. This should work really well with a BBQ and was a great surprise! Retails for between $15 and $20 and is a great value!
the winegetter 