A Rosé is a Rose is a Rosé

I learnt an important lesson today. Hamptons-bound for a hen-party weekend, I wanted to purchase a particular bottle of prosecco I had tried at a Friday wine tasting a couple of months ago. I had thought about buying a bottle at the time, since it was the most delicious prosecco I'd ever had and cost $14, but I didn't. Today I was informed that the bottles the store had then, in May, were the last to be had in the country. Next time, I'll pick one up. As an aside, the clerk mentioned that it was partly to blame on the bangin' business they've been doing this summer in prosecco, and rosé. Which helped gladden my heart. I've long believed that people in the US don't drink enough fizzy wine. Even I can't bring myself to open a bottle of champagne just because there's one in the fridge (I recently opened a perfectly unexceptional bottle that had been rattling around for a year, having a good enough reason to celebrate, and knowing exactly how silly it was to have saved it). But prosecco, cava, sparkling moscato, heck, sekt even if you're so inclined although I find it undrinkable, there's nothing that makes a little gathering more fun. Effervescence is infectious. And regular readers know that I am one of the city's biggest boosters of rosé. Which is why I am delighted to report that I am sitting here, on a warm Thursday night, the sun having just descended below clouds the same colour off our west-facing deck, with a glass of what may well be my new favourite rosé. For some years now, I've been converting non-rosé drinkers with wines that surprise them, have some substance and usually a dark tint, like Tavel from Provence and Xynomavro from Greece. I don't tend to pick up the paler rosés, fearing insipidness, but this is a midrange beauty. It's a Rosé de Loire (which has it's own appellation) from Chateau Soucherie, no year noted on the bottle although it is likely I am drinking the 2005. Now, I love Loire whites and I love the odd few rosé Sancerres (made from pinot noir) I'd had over the years, so this seems obvious -- why haven't I picked it up before? Because I've been seeing it in every wine shop in town. I admit it, I was wrong to eschew the masses. The very first sniff was a revelation, it smelled like gentle wild roses. A rosé that smells like roses?!? Then a very difuse herbal grassiness, also present in the mouth. The body is perfect -- not too light, not too heavy. It's a very clean wine, present without being assertive (my other preferred rosés can be just a bit bossy) and featuring some real minerals, which makes it marvelously refreshing and suited to a wide variety of foods. I had mine with some a raw zucchini salad made with oil-cured Morrocan olives, the season's very first proper tomatoes, basil and thyme, and it loved every ingredient. Particularly the thyme. Forget the moscato, I'll be bringing this to Wainscott instead. The wine is 80% Cabernet Franc and 20% Grolleau, with an unsually swelling hips-shaped bottle, and I paid $10.99. This family, famed for chenin blanc, has been making wine since the 1780s. Long enough to know what they are doing, and it shows.