The Future Looks Rosé

Now that we're into autumn, you may think the future looks decidedly less Rosé.

Those of us who drink Rosé wines--those pale to dark pink bottles of wine made from everything from Cabernet Sauvignon to Zinfandel--tend to think of them as summery offerings, suitable for picnics and barbeques but not for serious food.

Actually, Rosé wines are versatile and food friendly. They pair with almost everything. Served with a bit of a chill, they offer refreshment when your table contains spicy dishes. And they are usually very affordable.

Here are two of my favorite Rosés, which I tasted over the summer and early fall and which I have no problem recommending to those of you who are ready to take out your stew pot and turn on your oven. And both of them are dry wines--which means that they will pair with almost everything.

2010 San Giovanni Garda Classico Il Chiaretto ($15.00, domaineLA; available in market for $13-$15) This delicious Rosé is made from an Italian blend of Barbera, Groppello, Marzemino, and Sangiovese. You will smell the strawberries, and the aromas carry over into the flavors. There is a pleasant stony edge to the strawberry tones, and a lovely, savory note in the aftertaste. Well-balanced, medium-bodied, and excellent QPR. We had it with a Jamie Oliver dish of grilled tuna with oregano and lemon, grilled zucchini, and some garlicky cannellini beans, and the wine had the right amount of fruit, acidity, and minerality to pair with the dish. It would also be great with creamy pasta dishes, sausage, or roast pork. Note: It comes in a cute, chubby bottle but it does contain the full 750ml that you're used to.

2010 Château d'Esclans Côtes de Provence Whispering Angel ($20.99 from my local independent grocery store; available in market for $13-$27)
This wine is very, very pale pink in color--think ballet-tights pink. The aromas are even drier than those of the Il Chiaretto, with under-ripe strawberries, chalk, and melon rising up from the glass. The flavors echo the aromas, but the chalk becomes more intense. Very dry, very savory, and very good QPR (though if you can get it for under $15, you will find it's excellent QPR) This wine is made mainly from Grenache, with some Rolle, Cinsault, and Syrah blended in to it. A nice pairing for shrimp or other shellfish, salmon, tuna, or roast chicken.

An Italian Native from Monferrato

As I mentioned in yesterday's announcement post, Italy's Piedmont region is blessed with a number of indigenous grapes that produce distinctive wines.

This month, I'm beginning my journey into Piedmont with a blended red wine that was brought into the US by wine impresario Randall Grahm back when Bonny Doon expanded (briefly) into the negociant and importer biz. Since this wine was bottled and sold, Grahm has abandoned this venture to focus on biodynamic winemaking--which is too bad, because this wine represented very good QPR. And I'm not the only blogger to think so. Check out the reaction from Taster A at the blog Smells Like Grape.


The 2005 Bonny Doon Monferrato Rosso Piemontese Blend was an interesting wine that, though a bit tight and flat at first, opened up nicely over the course of the evening. It was blended from 70% Ruche, an indigenous Piedmont grape, 20% Barbera and 10% Syrah. Even when first opened, there were heady aromas of white flowers and plums, and these deepened and got more complex and less overtly perfumey as time passed. The flavors reminded me of pomegranate and cherries, and there was a juicy, spicy aftertaste. This wine has lots of acidity from the combination of Ruche and Barbera, which makes it an excellent and adaptable food wine.

We had the wine with a simple, rustic, and flavorful pasta dish: spaghetti with garlicky marsala mushrooms. The garlic was beautiful with the wine's acidity, and the bright fruit flavors in this wine were a nice counterpoint to the earthiness of the mushrooms. I was a bit worried the Marsala and the Ruche would not be a happy partnership, but it was just fine. (If you don't have Ruche, this recipe would be great with another variety from the Piedmont: Nebbiolo)

I got this from the Bonny Doon Wine Club over two years ago, in February of 2007, for $15.30. You can't get it any more--at least not as far as I can tell. However, this wine was actually made by Luca Ferraris, a well-known winemaker from the region and you can find their Ruche for between $18 and $25. Based on the tasting notes on CellarTracker the wine has evolved quite nicely during the two years it has been in my cellar. So if you do go ahead and get some of Ferraris's Ruche, you may want to give it 3-4 years after the vintage date to develop the fruit flavors to go with the upfront aromatics.

Wine Blogging Wednesday #54: Piedmont

Welcome to Wine Blogging Wednesday 54, the monthly online tasting event dreamed up many moons ago by Lenn Thompson of Lenndevours.

This month our host is David McDuff, who blogs about food and wine at McDuff's Food and Wine Trail. For his theme he picked the wines of Italy's Piedmont region. I was thrilled, since GWU$20 will be focusing on Piedmont as part of my ongoing Italian wine project, and this way I get to learn a lot from other wine bloggers before I start my own journey into the grapes of the region.

Piedmont is second only to Tuscany in terms of its high international reputation among wine lovers, and many serious collectors prefer the wines of Piedmont because of their subtlety and finesse. Because wines from the Piedmont are coveted, they are also costly--but there are varieties (such as Barbera) that often make their way into less expensive bottlings.

To get a sneak peak of what's in store for me next month, I looked through my cellar and found a bottle of Barbera, the Piedmont's fruity, drinkable grape. What I discovered was that the 2006 Stefano Farina Barbera d'Alba, was not so fruit-forward at this stage of its life. But perhaps it was the better for it. ($8.95, Chronicle Wine Cellar; available elsewhere for $9-$13).

The wine had aromas of plum and tobacco, which already told me that this was going to be a wine that was better with food. The plums were present in the flavors, as well, and the tobacco turned towards something more reminiscent of black tea. There was abundant acidity at the center of the wine, and an herbal, plummy aftertaste.

Because of the wine's acidity and herbal, tobacco, and black tea flavors it was excellent with a tomatoey pasta dish, Strozzapreti with Tomato-Pancetta sauce. Accented by herbs and cheese, the dish really made the wine shine. Even better, it's quick to prepare so it's a perfect meal when you want something hot and comforting after a long day at work.

This may not be the most complex Barbera you'll ever drink but it's held up well in the year I've had it and I think it will continue to drink well for the rest of 2009. (note: the label is from a much earlier vintage, but it was all I had since I threw the bottle away before I snapped a picture!)

Thanks to David for a great theme, and I look forward to reading everyone's posts about wines from the Piedmont.

Still Enjoie-ing Rosé in September

It's September, and though summer is an increasingly distant memory for most of us, I'm still hooked on rosé.

Thought of as a summer quaffer, the thing that makes rosé perfect for your dinner table regardless of the season is that it's a terrific food wine. It lightens up spicy pasta with red sauce and sausage. It's glorious with tuna and salmon. It's fantastic with turkey, and roast chickens with rosemary and garlic.

The 2005 Vinroc Caves Enjoie is a gutsy rosé made with Grenache and Barbera. (I received this wine as a sample; you can get a bottle for $13.99 from Wine Q, and if you are in the WineQ Good Wine Under $20 wine club, it's been added to your Q already) It had a rich, raspberry juice color which reflected its robust character. There were aromas of red currant jam, raspberries and also wet chalk and clay. The raspberries I've smelled before in a wine, and even the chalk--but not that clay note. After smelling the wine the surprises were all behind me and then I tasted pomegranate seeds--not the juice, the slightly powdery mix of seed and fruit together in the seeds. Combined with more raspberry, these flavors led into a juicy aftertaste with a mineral undertow of clay and chalk that kept you coming back for more. It was so different, and so complex, that I have to give this wine an excellent QPR rating.

Rosés like this one are a perfect partner for late summer tomatoes. I made a fresh tomato tart (or tarte aux tomates if you want to be French about it) that was terrific. Hint: disregard the 30g of yeast part of the ingredients and just use a single packet of yeast from the supermarket. It had a light, biscuity crust and wonderful swirls of cherry tomatoes, oregano, and olive oil. When it comes out of the oven, sprinkle some chiffonaded basil on top, some kalamata olives, and (if you are like me and a cheesehound) some freshly shaved Parmesan cheese. I am so proud of it that I took a picture. The biscuity crust was quite nice with the chalk/clay/mineral notes in the wine, and the pomegranate flavors worked well with the tomatoes.

Hang onto the last whiffs of summer while you can. Rosés can help.

Big Night In: the NV Dover Canyon Renegade Red

Need something to do this Friday night? Rent (or re-rent) Big Night Out, the wonderful movie about two brothers and their adventures with an Italian restaurant, start cooking some Italian food, and pop the cork on this rich, complex, spicy, and oh-so-easy to drink red blend. It cries out for pizza, pasta with red sauce, grilled meats, or any of the other dishes for which Italy is famous.

The NV Dover Canyon Renegade Red ($10.99, Colorado Wine Company; $10 direct from Dover Canyon) is a delicious example of a zinfandel-based blend with excellent QPR. It's made from a combination of zinfandel, sangiovese, barbera, and syrah, which gives it a distinctively Italian sensibility. This is a domestic red blend that gets it right, and that is priced right, too!

Jammy raspberry and blackberry aromas are accompanied by whiffs of black pepper and cinnamon. Tastes of rich red fruits, spice, cedar, and pepper follow, with hints of blueberry and roasted meats as you swallow. There's not much of a lingering aftertaste, but who cares! This wine is so approachable and easy to drink you don't need a lingering finish to get you to take another sip. At this price, I would definitely buy more and its softness, medium body, and low tannins would make it a great wine for a party since it is one of those reds that doesn't require food to be at its best.

Dover Canyon is a deliberately small winery in the Paso Robles AVA. Winemaker Dan Panico and his partner, Mary Baker, supervise the making and marketing of these wines and their careful management of the grapes and the winemaking is evident in this bottling. Mary also keeps a wonderful blog that gives those who drink their wine an insight into the place, people, and pets of Dover Canyon. Visit their site, explore their wines, and see if you can't get some Renegade Red for your next pizza, pasta, or movie fest.

Field Trip to Piedmonte via the Heritage Wine Company, Pasadena

This afternoon we went out to see The Queen which we highly recommend and then over to the Heritage Wine Company in Old Town Pasadena for one of their weekend tastings. Heritage Wine is a great wine resource in the Los Angeles area, with a very knowledgeable staff and a great inventory, including hard-to-find German Rieslings, a nice selection of wines from Oregon, and a selection of Burgundies. You may not find many bargains here, but it is the place to go if you want excellent advice on special wine purchases.

Each weekend they offer special themes tastings in addition to the regular flights you can purchase (such as great whites, or interesting reds). The one we went to focused on the wines of Piedmonte in Italy. Tastings like this are great because they offer budget wine drinkers like me a chance to sip wines we might otherwise never purchase or taste (like Barolo).

There were six wines in the tasting, 2 whites and 4 reds:

NV Il Conte d'Alba Moscato D'Asti ($8.99)
2004 Fratelli Oddero Chardonnay($28.99)
2003 Icardi Pierino Barbera D'Asti ($16.99)
2004 Castello di Nieve Dolcetto D'Alba ($15.99)
2000 Giribadi Barbaresco ($49.99)
2001 Mauro Sebaste Barolo "Monvigliero" ($64.99)

None of us were that impressed with the whites, and the red that we liked best was the 2004 Castello di Nieve Dolcetto D'Alba, which I would give a rating of good QPR. It was a light bodied red wine, with a spicy, chocolatey taste. We felt it was a bit one-dimensional, and were not sure any additional ageing would improve this wine. This was in contrast to the Mauro Sebaste, which need another 2-4 years in a cool, dark place before the tannins balance out--not that any of us bought it to try the experiment!