Feeling In The Pink

With temperatures peeking above the 80-degree mark, patio dining, picnics and evening concerts are just about in full swing. If you’re a wine lover, it’s time to paint these pleasantly warm spring days in pink.

Whether you call them rosés, rosatos or rosados, pink wine speaks to the simple joys of life. The best pink wines are fresh, fruity and often offer up a zesty acidity.

The best way to look at pink wine is this: they are red wines doing their best impression of a white wine. Although there are a number of ways to achieve pinkness, the most common way is to allow the clear juice inside red grapes to sit with the skins for a short period of time, usually measured in hours. Once the skins are removed, voila!, you’ve got soon-to-be pink wine.

But you’ve got a lot more. If made with a deft hand, you also have unique aroma/flavor combinations you can’t get with a white or a red wine. You can taste and smell things like mango-watermelon, peachy roses, peppery raspberries and almost always with a crisp backbone of acidity. This is what makes these wines so refreshing, so special and so appealing during the hot weather, especially if they get nice ice bath prior to opening.

Of course, not all pink wines are created equal. Those of you who enjoy white zinfandels may be disappointed by the lack of sweetness in the dry (unsweet) pink wines that start appearing on store shelves and wine lists about this time of year. And those of you who mistakenly believe that all pinkish vino is sweet, you are in for the biggest surprise.

Pink wines haven’t exactly knocked chardonnay and cabernet sauvignon off the top of the popularity mountain, but there is an ever-growing acceptance and understanding of what dry pink wine is all about. In the 12 months prior to Feb. 2008, pink wines sales rose an astonishing 53.2 percent, according the Nielsen Co. Not surprisingly, more winemakers are trying their hand at these lightly pigmented “white” wines. Once the property of southern France, Italy and Spain (hence the more-common monikers rosés, rosatos or rosados), pink wines are being made the world over, as my wine recommendations reflect today.

Dry pink wine represents some of the most food-friendly, unpretentious things ever put in a bottle. Don’t rely on your preconceived notions of sweetness. It’s time to get your pink on!

2008 Angove Family Winemakers, Nine Vines,
Rosé, South Australia



• $13

• Two Thumbs Way Up

• Smells like a bowl of raspberries and tangerines. It tastes like one, too, with a touch of strawberry and mango. It has searing, refreshing acidity and jalapeño-like spiciness. One of the best pinks I’ve ever had.

2008 Hendry Ranch Rosé, Napa Valley, Calif.


• $15

• Two Thumbs Way Up

• Big for a pink wine, this wine, not surprisingly is made from zinfandel and primitivo grapes, but don’t call it a white zin. It has a rich, peppery raspberry quality with notes of nutmeg/cinnamon and balancing acidity.

2008 Meliasto Dry Rosé, Spiropoulos, Greece


• $15

• Two Thumbs Way Up

• Seductive, perfume-like aromas of strawberry, mango, citrus and rose pedals. An elegant wine, it offers flavors of strawberry and Meyer lemon. Tentatively scheduled to be in the market by summertime, tell your retailers to request it from their distributor early and often.