Just by coincidence after we wrote our post on rosé wines our local wine shop, Fine Wines of Stockton, had a rosé tasting for the Thursday night tasting. A little change was that they included four domestic wines and the other two were from France and Argentina. I’ll skip describing how the wines were made since we did that in the last post and get right to describing each one.
This was a blind tasting as usual so we didn’t know what we were tasting until we had tasted all six of them.
The first wine, a 2011 Toad Hollow Eye of the Toad Pinot Noir Rosé (11% abv.) from Sonoma County was made from the third pressing of the grapes. Light pink color, floral and berries on the nose. There were strawberry and raspberry flavors with good acid and a short to medium length finish with a bit of tannins.
Next we had the Cline Cellars 2011 Mourvèdre Rosé (13.5 abv.) which is made from grapes from 100 year old vines in Oakley, California. A very light pink color with a vegetal, black tea nose. There were complex vegetal, fruit and tea flavors and it was slightly sweet with a citrus rind finish.
Our third rosé was from Argentina, a 2010 Michel Torino Malbec Rosé (13.5 abv.) which was a light pink color. Made from 100% Malbec grapes the nose was closed. Mineral and berry flavors but the minerality flavor dominates. Good acid, light mouth feel. Overall a very light wine.
Now we moved to the Columbia Valley in the state of Washington to taste the Waterbrook 2011 Sangiovese Rosé (12% abv.). The wine is made from 100% Sangiovese and cold soaked for 50 hours to get an iridescent pink color. Big floral nose initially, dark cherry and grapefruit flavors; moderate length finish.
Moving across the ocean to France we had the 2011 Chateau D’Esclans Whispering Angel Cote de Provence (13% abv.). A blend of Grenache, Rolle, Cinsault, Syrah and Mourvèdre the color was a very light, almost clear pink. There seems to be a trend in Provence these days to make the rosé wines as light colored as possible while still retaining plenty of flavor. Color was very light blush with minerality on the nose, tannic fruit flavors with citrus rind bitterness. This is a slightly tannic, austere but interesting and pleasant tasting wine.
Our last rosé to try was the 2011 Perry Creek ZINMAN Rosé (14.2% abv.) from the Fairplay appellation in the Sierra Foothills. The ZINMAN Rosé is a blend of Zinfandel and Syrah grapes which give it a light pink color with a mineral nose, flavor had a burst of spice and black pepper with good acid and a medium length finish.
This was a good selection of rosé wines to add to our tasting notes. We still have a few more rosés to talk about in a future post including one from Arizona, so stay tuned.
As we asked before, do you have any recommendations we should try?
