If you follow the link below, you will be taken to the WineFolly.com site where Madaline Puckette does a blind tasting of Pinot Noirs from Burgundy and Oregon. I think this is an excellent representation of both how to taste wine and a fun way to organize tastings – compare the same variety from different regions or nations. Below the video on the site is a lot of good information as well.
I agree with Madaline about the 2015 Burgundies – living here in Lyon, I have been able to taste a few and they are stunning wines. And, being in France, I have access to some secondary labels from great producers which are not available in the US. As I have noted before, the French do not like to pay a lot for wine, which for most of them is an everyday part of life. French wine producers know this and price their wines accordingly for the most part. As an example, recently I drank a very nice white Burgundy from Mercurey which cost me just 11 euros.
I know I have not been blogging much lately – my focus has been on learning French and we have been drinking some everyday wines – which I will blog about soon. It is spring here, and the new crop of rosé wines will be on the shelves soon.
Look for a few posts on these over the next months.
This has been a very unique year for me in terms of wine exploration and enjoyment. After traveling full time between North America and Europe for 2 ½ years, Dorianne and I have settled in Lyon, France. Although we continue to travel for various reasons (I’m writing this in Southern California), we have been exploring the local wine scene in and around Lyon since July – and have discovered that there is a lot to learn, and even more to enjoy.
The year began with our annual few days in Pismo Beach, CA with our friends to explore wineries from Paso Robles, the Edna Valley, Santa Maria, and the Santa Rita Hills AVAs. The highlights of that trip were Sculptera Vineyards in Paso Robles (we all joined the wine club and bought two cases), Presqu’ile Vineyards in Santa Maria, and Pence Winery in the Santa Rita Hills. (LINK to Post about the last two)
The cases from Sculptera (mixed cases) were sent to Roam Miami (LINK), where Dorianne and I stayed last winter. A co-living/co-working space, Roam offered a haven of tropical peace and calm right next to downtown Miami and the Brickell area. We were surrounded mostly by Millennial digital nomads, and we conducted a few wine tastings and seminars to help educate them about wine enjoyment. (LINK to Post about Millennials and Wine).
In late March, we headed back to southern Oregon, Medford and Ashland, to see friends and explore more of the Rogue Valley wine scene. A month there took us to several wonderful wineries (LINK to Post) and some great restaurants.
The next highlight was two weeks in New York, staying in my daughter’s Harlem apartment, where we got to explore the burgeoning Harlem French wine and restaurant scene (LINK to Post about Harlem). Lots of good experiences there.
In June I traveled solo to Kelowna, British Columbia, the heart of the rich Okanagan Wine Region in western Canada(Link to Post about the Okanagan). Here I explored a variety of wineries and wines, as global warming has opened the region to growing red grapes, from Cabernet Sauvignon, to Tempranillo, to Syrah. Kelowna is a boomtown for vacation homes and recreation on its 90-mile-long glacial lake. The wine scene is growing more sophisticated with over 200 wineries in the area. Dirty Laundry Winery showcases much of what is fun in the Okanagan (LINK to Post).
After Kelowna, we spend some time in London (LINK to Post) it was off to Ireland’s Connemara area, where we drank Guinness for the most part. Then, in July, we made the move to Lyon (LINK to Post on Living in France).
Lyon has been a revelation in terms of wine. Centered between Burgundy to the north, the Rhône Valley to the south, Beaujolais to the west, and Jura to the east, there is an embarrassment of riches. And some surprises.
The French don’t like to spend a lot of money on wine. I’m sure that there are exceptions, but you rarely see a bottle above 20€ in a grocery store or over 40€ in the local wine cave (shop). Restaurants generally sell wine bottles at or just above retail. And winemakers sell wines for half to 2/3’s what they would cost in the US. A “pot” is a 460ML bottle – a bit more than a half-bottle – of house wine which will cost 8 to 12€ in a Bouchon (Lyonnaise for bistro). There are also demi-pots and rare 500ML bottles.
Box wines are better quality than I expected. For about 25€ you can get a 5-liter box of a very drinkable Luberon Valley red wine; 18€ for the rosé.
Rosé wines are very good at 4€ per bottle, excellent at 7 to 10€. We drank rosés almost exclusively during the hot summer months.
Maconnais Chardonnays are wonderful wines. Just north of Lyon, the vineyards of Macon produce some wonderfully approachable wines which sell for ½ or 1/3 of what their Burgundian cousins to the north fetch. Another nice surprise was Aligoté, the other Burgundy white – crisp, with a mineral/floral nose, it is a great value choice from the same winemakers who make the expensive stuff.
In France, Cabernet Sauvignon is just Cabernet and Sauvignon Blanc is just Sauvignon. Cases in France are 6 bottles. Just FYI.
As I noted in the Moving to France Post (LINK), we tend to shop every day for fresh items at the open-air marchés and the mom-and-pop bakeries, butchers, etc. This may also include a stop at the wine cave to pick up a bottle or two and have a conversation with the proprietor about what is new and interesting.
We have not yet begun to explore the wineries and vineyards in the area – our focus has been on learning French, getting to know the city, and finding a flat to purchase – however, we expect to do a lot of that in 2018.
We are winding up 2017 in Southern California with friends and family. Our New Year’s Eve dinner with friends will feature a cold lobster appetizer that I am making and a Ken Brown Chardonnay to accompany it; then roast leg of lamb with a 2005 Opus One and a 1994 Harlan Estate Cabernet Sauvignon to see the year out with something wonderful.
Next week, we return to Pismo Beach to explore the Central Coast some more, then . . .
Who knows?
Thanks for being a part of this year on the blog.
As always, your comments and suggestions are welcomed!
On a recent visit to New York to visit our daughter, Grace, we decided to purchase a starter case of wine for her and to set up an account at a wine shop. There are a number of very good wine shops in Manhattan, as you might imagine. We chose Union Square Wine Shop (LINK)after some online and in-person research, because of proximity to Grace’s school, a good selection of value-priced wines, and free delivery in the city when you purchase $95 or more worth of wine.
Grace, at 22, has developed a pretty good palate. She has been to France a few times and enjoys French wines very much, especially Bordeaux blends. My thoughts in filling the starter case were to take that preference into account and expand her experience a bit with reds, plus add some whites and rosès since summer is just around the corner. I also wanted to keep the prices under $25, being mindful of the budget of a starving aspiring Broadway star.
After discussing our goals with some of the sales staff, we (Dorianne, Grace and I) began to fill the case. I wanted to find some French wines that she would like first, which we did – one Bordeaux red blend, a Pomerol, two Sancerres, a BurgundianChardonnay, and a wonderful rosè from Tavel, the only French A.O.P. that produces Au Bon Climat only rosès. To this, we added a reliable California Pinot Noir from, a favorite of ours; a nice Oregon Pinot Noir to compare to the Au Bon Climat; a wonderful Rhône-style blend from Tablas Creek in Paso Robles; a Spanish Tempranillo blend; an Italian Barbara d’Asti and a Nebbiolo from Langhe; and an Australian Shiraz.
Here is the list:
There is nothing here from Germany or eastern Europe, no New Zealand or South America, etc. Fortunately, Grace has a long future to explore these and other options as she chooses.
Now, you can argue with any or all of these selections, but this starter case was built with some preferences in mind. That is the idea – you decide the parameters of the selections and then you find the best representatives of those parameters based on availability, price, and certain intangibles. Our bias was toward France, with an additional parameter of expanding outward from there and focusing on the Old World with some New World representation as well. That is a lot to cover in twelve bottles.
Union Square Wines and Spirits Shop
My suggestion to her was to make tasting notes of each wine as she drinks it and then replace bottles with a balance of things she likes and things she would like to try. Having a set of preferences helps when she is at a restaurant or a party and there are a variety of options. She already knows to steer clear of the bulk wines and the cheap “critter wines” that populate lots of party bars among people her age (and, unfortunately, people my age as well).
To create your ownstarter case, for yourself or for your children, my suggestion is to begin where you, or they, are. Start with what you already like and populate part of the case with those wines, then expand outward from there. The value of a good wine shop is that they will have staff who can make good recommendations – something you will not get at most supermarkets or places like Target and Costco (with some exceptions).
I can’t overemphasize the importance of finding a wine store employee or owner who you feel comfortable with. I was recently in an independent wine shop in Baltimore that stocked many wines with which I was unfamiliar. When I asked for recommendations from the owner/manager, he told me that he could only help me with Kosher wines; “That’s all I taste,” he said. No one else in the shop had tasted any of the non-Kosher wines! Interesting business model.
A good wine shop staff member will be of great assistance, especially when deciding what to add to your own preferences. He/she will have the experience needed to make recommendations that are very similar to those, or that are different enough to give you a new tasting experience. Good wine shops will also have tastings that you can attend to expand your wine experience.
It is important that you be clear about what you want. Don’t let the sales staff give you a wine that you are not interested in, or one that is too expensive for your budget.
Keeping these things in mind, creating a starter case can be a really great experience. Your comments, as always, are appreciated.
Dorianne and I spent our final four days visiting Oregon in Eugene, home of the University of Oregon and located in the southern portion of the famed Willamette Valley, the major “wine country” of Oregon. Our stay was both business and pleasure, as I had some speaking engagements here, but we did find some time to enjoy a bit of the local wine scene.
We dined at Café 440, Marche, the Market Food Court, and at King’s Estate Winery and Vineyards. We did a wine tasting and saw a Flamenco show at The Oregon Wine Lab, and we drank a few bottles at our friend’s home where we stayed.
Eugene is a college town, and on that side of the 5 Freeway, there is a downtown and quite a few restaurants, most of the kind that college students can afford; on the other side of the freeway there are the chain stores and some additional restaurants (like Café 440).
Let’s hit the highlights.
King’s Estate (LINK) is the largest of the area wineries – it would be a large operation just about anywhere. With over 500 acres under cultivation here and sourcing from a number of other vineyards in Oregon, some of which they own, they are large producers – the largest US producer of Pinot Gris, their flagship wine.
The estate is crowned by a hill, atop which sits the winery/tasting room/restaurant complex, designed to look like a Tuscan estate. Vineyards surround the complex. We had lunch in the dining room, which surrounds the tasting room. There are also tables outside on a large stone patio overlooking some beautiful scenery. You can get tasting flights with your meal if you like. I had the Pinot Noir flight, as did Dorianne. Our good friend,Linda Finleyhad the Pinot Gris flight. Our favorite among the Pinot Noirs was the estate Pinot Noir blend, which was the least expensive of the three wines in the flight.
After a very good lunch, we moved over to the tasting room and met Nicholas, one of the three gentlemen on duty. King’s Estate makes some very good wines – especially their Pinot Gris and Pinot Noirs, but their Chardonnay is also exceptional – very light and crisp, more of a Chablis style, and at a price point of only $18, a great value.
On Saturday evening, we were joined by our local host, Carole Angius, for an early dinner at Marche(LINK), rated the #1 restaurant in Eugene by TripAdvisor.com. We stuck to appetizers, but everything was beautifully prepared and delicious. The wine list is also excellent – we had a French Macon Chardonnay by the glass, as we were going to a wine tasting afterward. I highly recommend Marche.
Flamenco in Eugene? Why not? The Oregon Wine Lab (LINK), a local urban winery and wine bar, was featuring a Flamenco show – more of a demonstration by a visiting teacher from New York and some of his local students. That part of the evening was fun (LINK to previous postings about Flamenco).
The wines made at The Oregon Wine Lab carry the William Rose (LINK) label. We tasted several during the evening. Our favorite was the 2013 OregonPinot Noir ($28). The whites that we tried were all very high in acid. There is also a 2013 Willamette Valley Pinot Noir ($48) that we did not taste. I would say that the wines here are drinkable but not outstanding – but the place is fun and there was a large crown enjoying the dancing and consuming a lot of wine.
Café 440 (LINK) is a reliably good place to eat. I had a dinner and a lunch there. The service is good, the food is good, and there is a decent list of mostly local wines and craft beers (plus a full bar). Worth a visit.
There is a nice wine shop in the 5th Street Marketplace (LINK) with a great selection of Willamette Valley Pinot Noirs and other wines from Oregon and around the world. You can also taste wines and have a meal from the marketplace deli.
Display at 5th Street Marketplace
So that wraps up our five week visit toOregon. We had a wonderful time, some really good wine and food, and saw the beautiful scenery. From Ashland and the Rogue & Applegate Valleys; to Roseburg and the Umpqua Valley; to Portland and the northern Willamette Valley; to Eugene and the southern Willamette Valley, there is much to see and many great wines to drink. We shall return!
Dorianne and I spent Easter weekend in Portland, Oregon, staying downtown at the Westin Hotel. This post is an overview of the food and wine experiences of our weekend. I realize that we only experienced a sampling of what this great city has to offer.
Upon arrival at the Westin Hotel (LINK) on Friday, we were greeted with a wine tasting in the hotel lobby. ENSO (LINK), an Urban Winery featuring varietals and blends sourced from Oregon, California, and Washington. The tasting featured a white blend, a 2012 Counoise (unusual for these parts), and a red blend. All were very drinkable, especially the red blend which had low acidity and a very smooth viscosity. The Counoise was heavier and more viscous, with nice notes of red fruit and a hint of minerality.
After chatting with Kimberly Parks, the Enso Wine Club Coordinator and a number of other hotel guests about wine and travel, it was time to go upstairs and change for our dinner reservation at Jake’s Famous Crawfish(LINK), a member of the Landry’s Group. We walked the four block from our hotel in the crisp evening weather, passing the iconic Portland Food Trucks surrounding the park nearby (almost all closed at night).
Jake’s is that quintessential downtown seafood house – lots of wood, excellent and experienced servers, a long menu of selections and a great wine list. We ordered a bottle of Ponzi Pinot Gris (LINK)(LINK to NOTES), one of the better known Willamette Valley (LINK) producers. We were not disappointed – light and crisp with balanced acidity, mushrooms on the nose, and pear and pepper on the palate. A very nice wine. It went well with our Kamiai oysters, with Dorianne’s halibut and with my horseradish encrusted steelhead. It was a wonderful meal in a great atmosphere – not really adventurous, but solid and everyone knew what they were doing.
Lunch on Saturday at Bamboo Sushi SW (LINK), one of four in Portland, for some really excellent food accompanied by a Sapporo draft beer. The lunch specials here are really a great value. We spent the afternoon on a city tour with good friends David Alexander and Patience Muanza and her son, Josh. The tour included walking along 23rd Street in Nob Hill (LINK)and sampling some food (dessert!) and a flight of Willamette Pinot Noirs at Papa Hayden Café (LINK).
Dinner on Saturday was with good friends Laura Berman and Craig Benelli(LINK) at Luc Lac Vietnamese Kitchen (LINK), a very busy place with more of a Portland feel to it. Crowded – with a system where you wait in line, order, then wait for a table, and they bring you your food – and loud, it was a fun evening very different from our other dinners in town. The Pho was great. Luc Lac has wines by the glass or 1/2 bottle only (!); we discovered a very nice Rosé from Tavel (LINK), the only AOP in France that produces only rosé wines. As an added bonus, we ran into Dorianne’s nephew, Brian Nelson and his wife, Krista, from LA.
Sunday we went to the New Thought Center for Spiritual Living (LINK) in Lake Oswego for Easter service, where Rev. Dr. David Alexander presides over a large and vibrant spiritual community. Then off to lunch/brunch at St. Honoré Boulangerie (LINK) near the lake. Amazing baked goods – very French – and wonderful sandwiches accompanied by a French Pinot Gris made for a nice repast.
The Patisserie Case at St. Honore Cafe in Lake Oswego
After a relaxing afternoon of napping and surfing the web in our hotel room it was time for what would become the highlight of our Portland visit, food and wine wise. Our dinner reservations at Veritable Quandry (LINK), was a very special experience indeed. A friend recommended it to us (we had already made reservations) and noted that her brother, Matt, works there. Matt made us feel very welcome indeed, as did our excellent server, but it is Chef Annie Cuggino who is the star of this show. The food was simply excellent – no other word will do. A wine list that is appropriately heavily Oregon-centric but with a good number of other global wine regions represented, rounded out a marvelous dining experience.
Pork Chop in Cider & Ale SauceTrout in Cannelloni Bean Puree
Located in a lovely garden-style building of brick and steel near the river on the edge of downtown, Veritable Quandryis a local gem and has been since 1971. The garden seating is closed now, but we were seated at a table next to a floor to ceiling window. The long bar is also inviting – you pass by it as you enter. I was tempted to order a cocktail, but that wine list was simply too inviting. We selected a 2007 Stone Mountain Vineyard Reserve Willamette Valley Pinot Noir (LINK) from a list of about three dozen Oregon Pinots. It was an amazing wine – smooth, peppery, light enough to accompany Dorianne’s trout and enough body to hold up to my pork chop in a cider and ale sauce. Then house made sorbets and an Inniskillin Ice Wine for dessert. A truly delicious meal in every respect.
The sad news: Veritable Quandry is slated to close in the next several months – the city is taking the land for a new court house and the owner has decided not to relocate. So get here soon! Some photos of the meal experience are above.
As we depart Portland after this short visit, I know that we will return – there is too much left undone and some things we want to experience again!
During our stay in Ashland, we discovered a very vibrant and creative dining scene. This is largely due to the presence of the Oregon Shakespeare Festival that runs much of the year and brings thousands of tourists and visitors to this otherwise small town. Regardless, there are a number of very good dining and wine venues in town. I already blogged about a visit to Liquid Assets Wine Bar (LINK), and here I will mention three others with excellent and creative cuisine, with varying levels of focus on wine.
First, and foremost, is The Peerless Restaurant and Bar (LINK), west of Main Street on Fourth in the Railroad District. A part of the boutique hotel, the restaurant and bar have been a fixture here for many years. This was truly a wonderful evening. Four of us went on a weeknight and enjoyed an amazing meal in a beautiful setting (we were inside but during the season, there is a lovely outdoor garden area) seated near the fireplace. The smallish bar is perfect for a libation and the wine list is one of the most extensive in town, with local, regional, and wines of the world available. The wine list changes regularly and there are selections from previous lists on display on a sideboard by the entrance (empty of course).
Peerless (from their website)
Service at The Peerless Restaurant and Bar is excellent – knowledgeable and professional. Our server recommended a local wine, a Jaxon Fortè (pictured) that was a great accompaniment to the variety of dishes that we had (steak, burger, fish, and vegetarian). If you are in Ashland for only one night – this is your stop.
The Hearsay (LINK)is a speakeasy-styled restaurant and bar located under the picturesque town Cabaret Theater on First Street, west of Main. The focus here is on fresh food, artisanal cocktails, and a very short, but well-selected wine list. We sat in the back room, where about a dozen tables on two levels surround a piano. The artwork in the room is speakeasy themed and well executed – think wood, reds, blues and yellows. The front bar is in a large room with tables that can accommodate 100 or more, but was quiet on the Monday evening that we visited.
Hearsay Dining Room (from their website)
Our server, Thea, had recently returned from 6 years abroad teaching English in exotic locations like Thailand. Since returning, she had gained a good grasp on the local wine scene, and in helping us to select a red wine for the table, gave us tastes of several of the wines-by-the-bottle available – a first for me.
We selected a Tempranillo, the most expensive on the list (only $47), and were pleased with how it paired with our food. The only downside of the evening was that the steak that two of us ordered was very tough – but Thea offered the whole table desserts on the house to make up for it. So the evening ended well, as the desserts were delicious, especially the house made goat cheese ice cream (really). I give Hearsay a B+, mostly because of the service, but the evening was very pleasant for all of us.
Finally, the Standing Stone Brewing Company (LINK), not a wine venue, but with a few nicely selected wines available. The craft beers are excellent and the menu is incredibly creative, with international accents (kimchee appears in several dishes, for example) and again an emphasis on fresh and locally-sourced ingredients. I ate at the Standing Stone three times, a solo lunch, a lunch with Dorianne, and a dinner with our local friends Walter and Linda, and every time, I was impressed at the quality of the experience.
Standing Stone Brewing Company (from their website)
So Ashland is a very unique place – Shakespeare, hippies, nature, spirituality, excellent food, wineries and vineyards, everything from the funky to the sophisticated. We had a great three weeks visiting and I am sure that we will return. Next, we are heading up to the Umpqua Valley and Roseburg to try some wines there.
Yesterday, several of us went to the Applegate Valley AVA area in southern Oregon to taste some wines. This area, just to the west of Ashland, is in the foothills of the Coastal Range near the Rogue River Siskiyou National Forest. Beautiful country, a growing number of wineries in the area , but you travel a bit of a distance to get from winery to winery.
The AVA does not have a signature varietal. There are a number of micro-climates present, soil variations, and annual rainfall amounts vary from around 20 to 40 inches in different parts of the AVA. So you have Italian varietals like Sangiovese, Spanish Tempranillo, Rhône Syrah, Rousanne and Marsanne, plus Pinot Noir, Cabernet Franc, Cabernet Sauvignon and others.
We wanted to taste some of the best of the area, so our local friends took us to Cowhorn Vineyard and Garden (LINK) and to Red Lily Winery both off of Route 238 southwest of the quaint town of Jacksonville.
Cowhorn represents a number of good things about growing and making wine. First of all, the quality of the wines is simply superb. Producing a total of 2300 cases of Rhône varietals – Grenanche, Mouvedre, Syrah, Viognier, Rousanne and Marsanne, the owners and winemakers, Bill and Barbara Steele, use state-of-the-art biodynamic techniques. The wines that we tasted (and we didn’t even get to taste the reserve wines, which are spoken for by the wine club – hint) were beautifully crafted, balanced, and tasted much like wines we have had in the Rhône Valley. Their wines consistently score in the low to mid 90’s from such reviewers as Wine Spectator, Wine Enthusiast and Robert Parker.
The 2012 Syrah was beautifully crafted and needs a couple more years in the bottle to reach it’s peak. The whites – a Spiral 36 Blend of Viognier, Rousanne and Marsanne is delicious and a bargain. The 100% Viognier was a revelation – a beautiful mouth feel with apple, pear, and other green fruit, some minerality, and a very smooth finish. The Marsanne/Rousanne 50/50 was also quite good – all of the whites could have been from top Rhône Valley producers. We did take some of these home with us.
Some of Cowhorn’s WinesJim & Bill Steele
Second, they are operating a highly eco-sensitive and sustainable operation. Under construction is a new tasting room that is being built to the exacting standards of the International Living Future Institute (ILFI) (LINK), meaning that the building will add as much as it takes from the environment at every step of the building and operating process. While we were there, a beautiful table made from recovered wood and custom-designed for wine tasting by Barbara Steele, was delivered and set up. Here are a few photos.
If you can get your hands on some Cowhorn wines, do it.
Our next stop, after getting a bit lost on the scenic back roads of the area, was Red Lily Vineyards (LINK), a beautiful property along the roaring Applegate River. Here, Tempranillo is king. Les and Rachel Martin own and operate the vineyard and winery. The tasting room building is beautifully designed and contains facilities for special events. They also have a kitchen that produces some very good food. We had lunch here, accompanied by some of the Red Lily Wines.
Red Lilly Tasting Room
The wines that we tasted were primarily Tempranillo, some mixed with Cabernet Sauvignon. The 100% 2012 Tempranillo in the tasting was the best of that group. I had a glass of a 2006 100% Tempranillo that showed how well these wines age. Great tannin structure, well balanced between dark red fruit and minerality. A beautiful wine (and, at $51, the most expensive). They also sell some wines made in Spain to compliment the Spanish varietals grown here.
The wine tastings are available poured into test tubes and put in a rack that you can pour yourself when you are ready. There are tasting notes for each wine. You can also have the friendly and knowledgeable tasting room staff pour each taste for you. The Red Lily wines are very well crafted, not up to the level of the Cowhorn, which would be exceptional in any AVA or appellation, but very drinkable and reasonably priced.
Both of these wineries were a joy to visit, with the usual great people that one tends to meet in the wine industry. If you are visiting southern Oregon soon, make it a point to check these two out.
We will be doing some more exploration on this visit – so watch this space.
During the past decade, rosé wines have gone from the very low end of the wine spectrum to a place much closer to, if not the top, then the upper-middle. This is, in part, due to the overall improvement in everything in wine from viniculture to winemaking skills and techniques across the industry. As a result of these developments, almost all wines, especially mid-range and lower end wines, have improved.
But rosé has gotten even better, because some great winemakers have begun to produce rosés, especially in California and Oregon. Provence, the recognized king of rosé regions, has also upped their game. The result is a much higher quality set of options for summer wine drinking – or any time that you would like to enjoy a nice, light, crisp and, increasingly, complex wine.
As noted in the earlier post on Go-To White Wines for Summer, Dorianne and I tend to reverse our normal ration of 75% reds to 25% whites and rosés in the summertime. We drink fewer reds and those tend to be lighter reds (we may even serve them chilled a bit).
So our Go-To rosés for Summer – the value wines that we go back to again and again – are
AcrobatNages
Chateau de Nages Buti Nages Nimes Rosé (2012) purchased from Total Wine and Spirits ($9.99) and King Estate Acrobat Rosé (2013) purchased from World Market ($11.99).
Both of these wines are crisp and dry, fruit-forward wines. The Chateau de Nages is from the Rhone Valley and is 60/40 Grenache/Syrah aged in oak barrels. The Acrobat is a Pinot Noir and is aged in stainless steel.
Turkey Flat
A little higher up the price spectrum is a wine that I have had several times over the past decade, but is not available every year, at least not where I have looked. The wine is Turkey Flat Rosé from the Barossa Valley in Australia. The grape is Shiraz and the wine is always dry and crisp with some minerality enhancement to the fruit that one expects from a rosé.
As always, I recommend that you explore around your local wine shops and other retailers and see what rosés they are stocking. Have a conversation with the folks in the shop to see what they recommend based on what you like. I have found some interesting wines this year, including a Cabernet Sauvignon rosé from South Africa. There are also some very well-crafted California rosés this year – but at higher price points than the French rosés, including Provence, Bordeaux, and the Rhone and Loire Valleys.
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Jim Lockard On Wine 