The long Labor Day weekend, happening in just a few days here in the US, bookends the summer season and at least symbolically brings it to a close. From a wine and wine business perspective, it’s an appropriate moment to consider a few of the themes that are front of mind this year when it comes to rosé, given its seasonal popularity during the warmer months.
It’s worth mentioning at the start that “rosé is a summertime wine” is no longer the hard-and-fast truism that it once was. Certainly sales figures indicate that the lion’s share of rosé sales happen during the warmer months of spring and summer. But consumer interest in rosé has been bolstered in recent years by increasing attention from producers both in the quality and the adaptability of rosé in a number of situations, from sparkling rosé during the holiday season to food-friendly pairings of more robust rosé styles during the cooler months.
In other words, rosé is not a one-trick pony. It is also subject to the same concerns and anxieties that challenge the industry, including the global supply chain. That’s where we’ll start in our brief recap of rosé wine, as summer 2022 comes to an end.
Supply Chain and the Freshness of Rosé
The light, crisp freshness of rosé is one of its most recognizable characteristics, particularly when it is associated with the pale pink colored bottlings that are so popular from southern France and some parts of Italy. Rosé is typically bottled very young in order to deliver on the promise of crisp freshness. In the northern hemisphere, that means the bottles of the newest vintage that usually land on the shelves in the springtime (March or April of the current year) were produced from grapes in the prior harvest (August or September of the previous year).
Global supply chain issues has thrown a wrench into those plans, which means that the brand-new vintage of rosé may have been delayed in arriving. Which means that the rosé we’ve all enjoyed drinking this summer may have been from two or even three vintages ago.
The question is, how well does rosé age, knowing that most production is based on the assumption that it will be consumed while very young?
We put this question to the test recently when some rosé-loving friends (enthusiastic consumers who do not work in the trade) and I tasted two vintages from Provence-based Domaines Ott, which was founded in 1896 and has been producing rosé wines since 1912. We tasted their 2020 and 2019 BY.OTT offerings and agreed, unanimously, that both older vintages deliver exactly what we have come to expect from a rosé in this style (that friendly, easy-drinking, crisp freshness) without a sense of either vintage being “off” or over the hill.
“Hearty” Rosé to Transition Us to Fall
“Hearty” is not typically a word used to describe rosé wine, but it’s the first one that came to mind for me when I saw the color of the 2021 Smith-Madrone Rosé. It’s only the third time in their long history that Smith-Madrone has released a rosé wine, and it’s made from that producer’s own Merlot and Cabernet Franc from their estate vineyards at the top of the Spring Mountain District in Napa Valley.
If a producer preserves the authenticity of their style and the “hearty” nature of their terroir, and that producer’s vineyards are on Napa’s Spring Mountain, then this is how their rosé wine must look. It’s described as an “extravagant, piercing color” that is such a “vibrant pink it’s practically radioactive.” I’d agree with that description except for the “pink,” which is so unlike the pale salmon pink color most often associated with rosé that it’s almost misleading.
It is a rosé, but one that stands out. It is crisp and refreshing, but with a core of minerality. You do want to drink it during the summer, but you also know that it will flow right into sweater season just fine.
Which means that this rosé is a perfect way to close the “recap” of rosé wine for the summer of 2022, largely because it represents an emerging variety of rosé options, including several of which will push the rosé summertime drinking season well beyond Labor Day weekend.