Rosé d’Anjou 2009

I think rosé is going to be my favorite summer wine for 2011. I recently wrote about a delicious 2010 rosé from Côtes de Povence, noting that 2010 is turning out to be a great year for rosés from this region. But I found an extraordinarily tasty bottling from Anjou, an appellation in the Loire Valley.

The 2009 vintage from Barton & Guestier is a juicy and racy wine with a very pale pink color like a pink topaz. There’s honeycrisp apple, strawberries and kiwi that are refreshing and held together well on a light, mineral beam. The finish is lingering, but not cloying. It is a very food-friendly wine that I managed to find for about $12 and I am certainly going to continue to pick this one up wherever I see it.

Most recently I took a bottle with me to the Chicago restaurant Mixteco Grill. It went very well with both my dish – a grilled pork chop sliced and smothered in a mild and tart green chile sauce laced with shredded jalapeño – and my friend Curt’s (sorry, I can’t recall what he had). But this wine is certainly a perfect quaff for spending the day at the beach reading a fine book.

Have you recently found a favorite rosé? Please tell me about it!

I rate this one an 8.5 using my scale at the left.