Bisson 2007 Golfo del Tigullio Rosato Ciliegiolo (Liguria) – Leafy strawberry with a good dose of grey sea salt and a flat, papery wrapping that somewhat mutes the wine. Tasteful but somewhat indifferent. (8/08)
rosé
Don’t squeeze the Charvin
Charvin 2007 Côtes-du-Rhône Rosé (Rhône) – Beautiful. It tastes nothing like a light pink version of some meaty, boisterous Côtes-du-Rhône. Instead, there’s delicacy and precision, with a lightness to what is unquestionably ripe strawberry-focused fruit, minerality, and transparency. There are no signs of alcohol, at all. The loveliest rosé I’ve had this summer. (8/08)
Facial injections
Bottex Bugey-Cerdon “La Cueille” (Ain) – Harder-edged than the last few years, with more of the foundational granite showing and less of the sprightly, fizzy strawberry; but then, this was always a more restrained expression of this appellation even in the best of year. In truth, it’s very slightly serious. And that just can’t be right. (7/08)
She don’t lie, she don’t lie, she don’t lie: Cocagne
Cave Coopérative du Vendômois 2004 Coteaux du Vendômois Lieu-dit Cocagne (Loire) – A rosé of pinot d’aunis. Very, very pale, with a frigid quality at first opening. Then, it blossoms; almost literally, as in a bouquet full of highly aromatic, but not lurid, flowers over a stark landscape of clay-like minerality. This dances, soothes, and seduces. And it’s a breakthrough: the first pinot d’aunis I’ve ever liked. (7/08)
David Michlits
Michlits 2005 Pinot Noir Rosé Frizzante (Burgenland) – Geez, pick a language. Strawberry, watermelon, and minerality form the aromatic cohort, with a candied element emerging and eventually dominating the finish. A dull, indifferent wine with no tactility to its sparkle. (4/08)
Spar + Worf – (-off)
Brun “FRV100” (Beaujolais) – Grapey, light berries, with fun fruit and purple flowers in abundance. Pure joy. (4/08)
The fine line
López de Heredia “Viña Tondonia” 1997 Rioja Rosado (Center-North) – Old library plus fruitwood-smoked skins and rinds, with the memory and contextualization rather than the actual existence of fruit as it is commonly understood. Breathtakingly opinionated and highly controversial. I both love and hate it, and see no contradiction in those responses. (6/08)
20 + Bullwinkle + a needle pulling thread
Brun “FRV100” (Beaujolais) – In the pantheon of sparkling pink beverages, this is the pirate king; assertive, boldly-iconoclastic, rebellious, and showy. The purplish fruit with a heady, freshly-pulled beer froth never “forms up” into a traditional wine structure, but instead comes in waves and eddies of texture and intense flavor. It is, it is a glorious thing. (6/08)
Sylvia Majoli for NPR
Sella 2006 Coste della Sesia “Majoli” Rosato (Piedmont) – Difficult. There’s a leafy, semi-exotic red fruit character here that should be compelling, but the wine just doesn’t bring its qualities to the palate, instead preferring to sit in the corner and brood. It was much better tasted at the source, which suggests either damage or bottle shock, but in this form it’s never going to be a crowd-pleaser. Or, for that matter, a me-pleaser. (6/08)
Witters don’t use drugs
Edmunds St. John 2007 Gamay Noir Rosé Witters (El Dorado County) – Vivid, light red fruit with a persistent, perhaps insistent drone; it’s that midpalate monotone that slightly reduces the appeal of this wine for me, though it would be fine in any context other than that of its predecessor. Which is, actually, praising with faint damn, because that’s some august context. (6/08)