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The truth about rosé wine

13/5/2016

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By Stephanie Miskew, Fox News
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A few years ago, convincing an oenophile to drink a glass of rosé was no small feat. The stigma associated with pink wine, largely due to the cloyingly sweet white zinfandel of the 1980s, was still too fresh in everyone’s mind.
But today, with summer on the horizon, wine lovers from St. Tropez to the Hamptons are stocking their cellars with rosé. So how did the pink-headed stepchild evolve so quickly into the “must have” wine of summer?

Rolle is one of a few grapes used in the production of Provencal Rosé. Rosé sales “have been growing steadily for the past 10 years, and Provençal rosé has been the driver,” says Eric Hemer, senior vice president and director of wine education atSouthern Wine & Spirits, the largest wine and spirits distributor in the U.S.

Provence is considered the birthplace of rosé, and Provençal rosé essentially sets the bar for all the other rosés in the world. 

But because of its pink color, it is often associated with white zinfandel, which was invented at Sutter Home Winery in California in the late 1970s. Sutter Home would bleed off some juice to concentrate the aromas and flavors of its finished red zinfandel, and rather than discard the excess, it fermented the juice into the pinkish-white, sweet wine that millions of Americans loved in the 1980s. Sugar levels were kept high to please the palate and to mask flaws in the finished wine. This also allowed for looser production standards.

White zinfandel has the same pink color as Provençal rosé, but that’s where the similarities end.

To understand the significance of rosé's rosy hue, a little background on wine production is required. All wine grapes-- from cabernet sauvignon to zinfandel-- produce a liquid that is clear. But when winemakers make white wine, the grapes are pressed and then just the juice is fermented. But when making red wine, the grape juice that gets fermented will contain bits of the grape, including skin and even stems-- which all accounts for the finished wine’s darker color, tannic quality and more robust body. 

Read the full article here.
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Stop drinking white wine

11/5/2016

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By Christian Gollayan, NY Post
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We’ve all happily heard about the health benefits of red wine. A recent study by the Annals of Internal Medicine found that a nightly glass can increase levels of good HDL cholesterol and help lower blood pressure, decrease blood-sugar levels and fight belly fat. But with warmer weather finally arriving, who wants to sip a hearty glass of Chianti or cabernet?
Thankfully, the good news isn’t limited to red wines. The main health-boosting ingredient in vino is resveratrol, an antioxidant found in much higher concentrations in red wine grapes than white. Handily, rosés are made with red wine grapes, giving them health benefits that their colorless counterparts lack.

nypost.com/2016/05/11/basic-girls-rejoice-rose-is-good-for-your-health/Read the full article here.

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Wine Wednesday: The Many Shades of Rosé Wine

11/5/2016

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By Lynn Aubrey, Theapopkavoice.com
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Spring is here! In the wine world, spring means new releases of the ever popular shades of rosé wine.
The Rosé craze has been growing over the years and now offers many new multi-global choices. From bone dry to sweet, there is a rosé for everyone.
Most Rosé wine is produced from red grape varietals making slight to longer contact of the grape skin with the wine during the process. The longer contact will lead to a darker color. This method is the most common and is known as the maceration method.
The red varietals grapes used in rosé making are usually indigenous to the red wine most produced in that area. For instance Spanish rosé may utilize Tempranillo or garnacha. Ana Oregon rosé may be Pinot Noir based, Argentina roses may use Malbec, Syrah, Italy may be Sangiovese based.
The most popular dry choices come from Provence, France.These southern France beauties offer a wonderful balance of dry, crisp, light pink color, with flavors of strawberry, watermelon, slight rose petals and balanced minerality. These wines can pair well with all kinds of food from light salads to heartier fare.
Other popular Rosés in France such as Tavel, Rhone, Bordeaux, Loire just to name a few.
Choices from Loire from D’Anjou region are slightly sweet and make a great choice for wine drinkers who like sweeter options.
South America offers some wonderful rosé wines. Some are darker pink in color and fuller body wines. Ripe strawberry, raspberry and some slightly off dry.
Spain offers some zesty, fruit forward rosés.  By the way, rosé is known as “rosado” in Spain. Spanish rosado is always a great value and very food friendly.
Italian rosés are often called “rosato” and are another great choice with vast array of styles and regions represented. Ripe strawberry, raspberry, jasmine, almonds commonly lead to the profiles of these ever popular rosato offerings.
Don’t be afraid to experiment or ask me to make some suggestions!

​View the full article here.

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Everything's Coming Up Rosé

10/5/2016

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By Ray Isle | Food and Wine
It’s that time of year again, so which rosé should you buy? F&W’s Ray Isle reveals the bottles that make him happy.
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Here’s something to think about. Out of a hundred different bottles of rosé, I’d hazard a guess that 
at least 90 are totally interchangeable. And I’m just fine with that.
As long as a rosé is pleasantly crisp, charming to look at, appropriately chilled and served to you in something other than a shoe, it will provide happiness. Some wines deserve quiet thought and contemplation. Rosé is not one of them. (If, at a party, someone starts talking to you about the raspberry nuances and subtle spice notes of the rosé you’re drinking, you’re officially allowed to push him or her into the pool.) Rosé is a wine of the moment. It’s a fling. People get married to Burgundy. Rosé, they wake up in the morning and realize they’ve forgotten its name.

This lack of seriousness may help account for rosé’s startling rise in popularity. Ten years ago, no one in the US drank it. If you wanted pink wine, you drank White Zinfandel, often in a retirement home. Now things are different. Essentially, over the past few years everyone has decided they want to spend the entire summer drinking as much rosé as humanly possible—something like 500 million bottles per year in the US alone, according to recent statistics. In France, people now drink more rosé than they do white wine. 

Because of that enormous thirst, there are now inexpensive rosés from every wine region on earth, made from every red grape variety imaginable. Recently, I’ve tried new versions from Provence, rosé’s homeland, plus Shiraz rosés from Australia, Nebbiolo rosés from Piedmont and Agiorgitiko rosés from Greece—and that’s just the start. Chilean rosé? Sure. Lebanese rosé? Of course. Rosé from Georgia? No problem. Would you prefer one from the Southern state or the former Soviet republic?

That all these regions are capable of producing pleasant, inexpensive rosé is excellent news for fans like me. A short winemaking lesson reveals why terroir is relatively unimportant: Producers simply need to pick grapes on the early side (to keep acidity high and alcohol low) and allow minimal skin contact during fermentation (hence the pink hue), and that’s most of the rosé in the world. Alternatively, rosé can be a by-product of making red wine: Early on, before the wine has fully absorbed the color from the skins, the winemaker bleeds off some of the pink juice (hence the name for this process, saignée—French for “bled”). This both intensifies the color of the red wine and produces rosé to sell during the two or three years that the red is sitting in a barrel.

Read more ...

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The Drop rosé wine launches packaged like beer to appeal to 'bros'

10/5/2016

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By Natalie Mortimer | The Drum
Alcoholic beverage company Mangrove Estates has launched a new brand of rosé wine aimed at millennial men who are fans of the pink drink.
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Packaged to look like a beer can, the brand and design for The Drop was created by Safari Sundays, who wanted the drink to appeal to "a specific type of millennial bro".
The agency created a ‘work hard, play hard, live rosé’ brand world, with visual cues to a sunny long weekend. The can features the tag line ‘Quality grape-age, no breakage… ‘ which has been designed to sum up the brand ethos.
Adam Walko, creative director, Safari Sundays, said: "Embracing all the good stuff and none of the compromise, exactly what millennials expect."
He added: "Our logo boldly challenges the elegance of the rosé wine category with an authenticity and impact usually reserved for beer. We chose a fresh, cool color palette that proudly reflected the product inside and built a collection of secondary seals and mottos such as rose gold stains, rally cries and a lobster breaking a corkscrew to create a bigger story for the crew and their fun, free lifestyle."
The Drop will be available in New York and Long Island from May 2016.

Read the full article here.

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Wine Line: American rosés on the rise

9/5/2016

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By Russ Winton | The Modesto Bee
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Every year, when baseball season starts, I know it’s time to start searching for newly released rosés. Normally, this means a trek to San Francisco to catch a Giants game and visit wine shops that carry plenty of rosés, especially those from Provence. French rosés have seen 11 years of double-digit growth in exports to the U.S. according to the CIVP Provence Wine Council. American wine drinkers have finally realized that a chilled, bone-dry rosé is perfect by itself or paired with almost anything. It’s perfect with grilled sardines, tapas, grilled vegetables, ratatouille, spicy foods, smoky foods, pink meats like ham, pork, hot dogs, shrimp, lobster and even French fries.

I was surprised when I discovered World Market had set up a rosé island featuring about a dozen French, Spanish and American rosés. Most were the 2015 vintage, which is what I was looking for although the 2014 is still a safe buy. I bought a mixed case, mostly American and canceled the trip to the City. I also checked the local supermarkets for U.S. 2015 pinkies and was disappointed.

You’d think they would have an end cap featuring the new releases. Last year, Costco had three available and this year just one, Gerard Bertrand. O’Brien’s Market has about a half dozen quality rosés, Tolosa, Lavender Ridge, Pomelo and Balletto. Bevmo has an interesting mix of last years, including Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt’s Chateau Miravel ($23.95). They also carry the 2015 Chronic Cellars Pink Pedals from Paso Robles. It’s a blend of 89 percent grenache and 11 percent syrah and has amazing flavors of watermelon and ripe cherries. It is definitely one of my favorites this year.

The Bernard Griffen’s Rosé of Sangiovese from Washington is a consistent best of class or double gold medal winner in the S.F. Chronicle Competition and is always on my list. The Sonoma County Toad Hollow Rosé of Pinot Noir has raspberry and rose petal aromas, watermelon and strawberry flavors and rounds out my top three favorites of 2015, (at least so far). Here are more American rosés to consider: Bokisch Terra Alta Rosado (garnacha), Bonny Doon Vin Gris De Cigare and Lange Twins (sangiovese). The good news is all are under $15 and available, thanks to World Market, O’Brien’s and BevMo.

What’s on our table
A reader gave me a taste of the 2011 Three Rivers Cabernet from Grocery Outlet (Merced) for $16.99. It’s a big wine with blackberry aromas, flavors of chocolate, cherries and a long finish. The website price is $39. I’m heading to Merced. Cheers!

Read more here: http://www.modbee.com/living/article76645607.html#storylink=cpy

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Drink pink: Recommendations to kick off rosé season

9/5/2016

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By Dale Robertson | Houston Chronicle
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Spring is springing all around us, so rosé class is officially in session. It's time to drink pink. Although fine rosés are made all over the world these days, those from France's Midi region are, for me, always the most evocative. And, as fate would have it, the Chronicle panel's four highest-scoring rosés from among the 45 we tasted recently each hail from a distinctly different AOC (appellation d'origine contrôlée, or controlled destination of origin) in Midi, which begins south of Valence and stretches from the Spanish and Italian frontiers.

Read the full article here.

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Mumbai food: Best wines to sip and savour on a hot summer day

6/5/2016

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By Suprita Mitter | Mid-Day
What are you going to drink in May and how’s it different from what you’ll pick in January? Two sommeliers discuss summer wines
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On a muggy summer's day, the imagery of putting our feet up with a glass of chilled wine to bring heat and anxiety levels down, would top of our wishlist. We invited two sommeliers to tell us what they prefer to sip on in summer, and share tips to make smart choices with food too.

“It would be ‘Oh so nice’ if the solution to getting hot in Mumbai were like the lyrics to the song by Nelly. However, till we get past our prudishness there are a few ways to cool off during the hot summer months. None of us are drinking Chardonnays or Merlots in this May heat with the temperature solely in control of the weather gods,” says Nikhil Agarwal, sommelier and founder of All Things Nice.

“With air conditioning and fans at homes and hotels, you could be drinking anything. I’d definitely be drinking a lot more white and rose wines simply because they’re enjoyed best at about 11 degrees Celsius and are generally lower in alcohol (don’t fret you can always sip on more!) You must also indulge in sparkling wines, served even colder than the whites at six degrees.


They are incredibly refreshing,” he adds.
Aneesh Bhasin, founder, Hipcask (India’s first wine app) couldn’t agree more. “You can serve the whites and the roses chilled. They are also not as full bodied as the reds which can sometimes get too heavy. The best thing about these wines is that they can be consumed for brunch or dinner and are versatile,” says Bhasin. “Pair them with all kinds of cuisines. Avoid too much spice. It might kill the delicate taste of the wine,” he adds.
Favourites 
Charosa Sauvignon Blanc
Chandon Brut
Grover Zampa Brut Rose
York Chenin Blanc
Sula Reisling
Vallonne Rose
Fratelli M/S - Sauvignon Blanc Chardonnay
— Aneesh Bhasin

Read the full article here.
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Codorniú Launches Its First Still Rosé Wine

2/5/2016

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By ESM Magazine
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Following the successful launch of Viñas de Anna, Codorniú's first still wine, one year ago, the Catalonian company, best known for it's Cava production, has introduced its first still rosé wine to the market: Viñas de Anna Flor de Rosa.
As reported on vinetur.com, with this new product range, Codorniú, one of Spain's oldest family-run business, is seeking to develop new purchase occasions for its products.
Viñas de Anna Flore de Rosa is described as a high-end rosé wine with a fresh and delicate flavour profile, made with Pinot Noir and Trepat grapes. Its tasting notes show an appealing mix of cherry, strawberry and raspberry with a hint of vanilla thanks to a brief stay in oak barrels.
The Codorniú Raventós Group makes wines in nine bodegas located on privileged areas of Spain: Raimat, Legaris, Bach, Scala Dei, Abadia de Poblet, Bodegas Bilbaínas, Nuviana, Artesa and Séptima.

Full article here.

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