A raspberry of a rosé

When drinking rosé, what's the fruit that initially comes to mind? For me it's always been strawberry. I would almost venture to say that strawberry is the sin quo non of rosé. But what of raspberry? That's what the label on the Charles & Charles 2010 Columbia Valley Rosé says, and when I tasted it, I had to agree. This rosé has a delightful crisp raspberry flavor that is really interesting. This makes it a tad sweeter than other rosés, but not too sweet. It finishes dry like a delicious rosé should.

This wine is a blend of Syrah, Morvèdre, Cinsault, and Grenache, very much a Rhône style, not unlike the whites from that region. It holds up with bolder and spicier dishes too. I had it with my "famous" Balinese pork dish, which is both sweet and spicy. See the recipe below.

This has been a great year for rosé and I have found many wonderful wines for $12 and less. And this one comes right up to that $12 price point. I have seen it for more, but seriously, if you shop around, you'll find it for $12.

Wine Spectator scores this an 88. I give it an 8.5 using my scale at the left.

Balinese pork recipe

I find the best pork to use is boneless rib meat. But the meat from boneless pork chops works also (not as tender though IMO).

Partially freeze the meat so it's firm and easy to slice, but not so hard you can't slice it.

Slice the pork thinly and lay out on a plate, sprinkle with salt and pepper; use a lot of black pepper.

Depending on how much pork you use, you can make layers, salt and peppering each layer. Let the pork sit for a while with the salt and pepper.

Prepare/ready the following:

One small or half a medium onion, thinly sliced (use either white or red)

2-3 whole cloves of garlic, or use about a teaspoon of minced garlic

2 teaspoons of ground ginger

150 ml of hot water (hot from the tap is fine)

5 tablespoons of sweet soy sauce (the thick kind, Indonesian style)

1/2 teaspoon of sambal olek (more if you like it really spicy)

Stir the sweet soy sauce into the hot water so it's all mixed.

Heat oil in a wok (I used bacon grease for added flavor, but sesame oil is good too, or just regular corn oil).

Stir in all the pork at once, stir around.

Add the garlic, stir until pork is cooked.

Add sliced onion and ground ginger, stir quickly (the ginger will start to coat the wok).

Add sambal olek, stir so that the chili is distributed evenly.

Add the water and sweet soy mixture, stir and scrape the wok so the ginger that stuck to the wok gets mixed in too.

Bring mixture to a boil, then turn down heat to simmer and cover.

While the pork is simmering, start your rice.

Check the pork occasionally and stir.

When the rice is done (or after about 20 minutes), remove the cover from the pork and let it bubble for a while so the liquid evaporates slightly and thickens.

Serve with the rice.

This also goes well with a Riesling or Gewürztraminer.

A consistent rosé does it again

Each spring as I go through my round of rosé tasting, I always pick up the latest release from Château Beauchêne. The 2012 Le Pavillon from the Côtes du Rhône lives up to its reputation of being an inexpensive and quaffable wine. These aren't classic wines, but solid performers that are light and easy to drink. The strawberry and kiwi is fresh and light on a mineral beam that finishes clean.

This wine is food-friendly as well. You should be able to find it for less than $10. The producer has a solid reputation for steadiness and consistency. It's a great wine to pick up a case for entertaining, your guests will love it.

I score this with an 8.5 using my scale at the left.

2012 Provence rosé shines again

My search for the perfect summer wine has been exceptional so far because of the plethora of great rosé that is available. The Rhône region of France, more specifically Provence and the Languedoc-Roussillon wine region, traditionally produces great rosé, and many of these can be had at bargain prices. My latest tasting exploration brought be to the 2012 vintage Minervois from Chateau Sainte Eulalie.

While the DMZ from South Africa and the Spanish Jumilla rosé I tasted remain top contenders, you won't go wrong with this wine, particularly when you consider it's just $10 a bottle.

Like all the rosé I've tasted so far, this is very food-friendly and would go great with roast chicken.

It is a blend of primarily of Syrah and Cinsault with smaller proportions of Carignan and Grenache. It's full of strawberry, raspberry, and even cranberry, with a hint of herb. It has a long, fresh finish that leaves the palate clean.

I score this an 8.5 using my scale at the left.

South Africa has a hit rosé

Admittedly, I have not always had good luck with South African wines. The reds I've tasted have been fruit bombs that made many an Australian red seem tame. And the whites I've tasted have been too citrusy and not enough herb. So I haven't tasted many because I've been disappointed so many times.

But the 2012 DMZ rosé from DeMorgenzon is delicious. This rosé is made with Cabernet Sauvignon. It is crisp, juicy, full of strawberry and kiwi flavors that roll deliciously about the tongue and finish with a fresh zest. There's watermelon and pomegranate as well, but it remains a refreshingly dry quaff. The nose is light spring fruit and subtly floral. And the color, wow! A vibrant pink, even reddish, but clear as crystal.

Also, an interesting note, the producer plays music in the vineyards under the idea the vines will produce better grapes!

Best part: it's just $12 a bottle. This will definitely be at the top of my list of summer wines. But the hunt continues!

I score this with an 9 using my scale at the left.

Rosé is a wine for summer

We may be on the backend of summer, but there is still plenty of time to enjoy some delicious rosé, and as they have done in recent years past, the French are producing some marvelous rosé with much of it available for less than $12.

Many of my favorites have come from Provence and the Southern Rhône area, but an exceptional good buy widely available now come from the Bergerac area of Dordogne in Bordeaux. The 2011 Chateau Haut Sarthes can be had for as little as $8 and it's a delicious find. I would call this wine delicious if it were $15, but for $8? This is totally delightful.

This is a lovely find because apparently just 15 percent of the rosé produced in the Bergerac is exported, and most of that goes to Great Britain, Germany, Belgium and the Netherlands.

And it goes well with a wide variety of food. The first time I had it, my friend Curt brought it along to have with artisan pizza at the Pizza Art Cafe in Ravenswood Gardens here in Chicago. A crisp dry rosé with the sumptuous flavor of ripe strawberries, it also went well with a pork tenderloin served with Brussels sprouts and corn on the cob. It really is a juicy and versatile wine.

I rate this wine with a 9.5 using the scale on the left.

Nebbiolo grown in Arizona?

I hadn’t visited the former ghost town of Jerome, Ariz., for 30 years, so I was anxious to return to see what had happened to this arty enclave clinging to the side of a mountain determined to slide into oblivion. When last I visited, the hippie and art crowd were just beginning to squat, turning old, crumbling buildings into new shows, restaurants and even apartments and condos. I in no way expected to find so many wine tasting shops when I returned, and one I visited had some very interesting wines produced from grapes grown in Arizona.

Yes, in Arizona, and among them was a rosé crafted from Nebbiolo grown in the hills north of Wilcox, Ariz., which is in the southeast corner of the state. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

Caduceus Cellars & Merkin Vineyards Tasting Room in Jerome offers a wide variety of wines and tasting flights, including some that match cheese and other appetizers with their wines. The $10 flight I tried included four wines: a white, a rosé, and two reds.

The first wine was called Dos Ladrones, a 2010 vintage made with Malvasia Bianca and Chardonnay grown in Arizona. It had a bright, fragrant nose, but was a bit creamy on the first taste. Happily this creaminess disappeared on the finish, which was fresh and had just the right combination of orchard fruit and citrus. There seemed to be a little bit of herb and maybe even some white pepper? It was a very nice start.

Then came the wine that intrigued me the most: a rosé made from Nebbiolo, but not just any Nebbiolo, but Nebbiolo grown in Arizona! What was this? To me, Nebbiolo is a truly noble grape used to craft outstanding Barolo. And like Pinot Noir, Nebbiolo can be a delicate and finicky grape. Certainly, I was familiar with the beautifully elegant and even muscular Barolos, but a rosé?

Called Lei Li Rosé, this 2010 vintage had an almost amber pink color. The nose was fresh with lovely but so ephemeral fruit that had just a bit of zing to it. Tasting, this wine was very delicate, the flavors very subtle but really quite good followed by a lingering finish. Seriously, the flavors were so delicate that I could see someone easily missing them. This was a wine that demanded your attention, but was a delight to drink. So delicate, I wondered how to pair it with cheese. They had an answer for me at the shop, but unfortunately I can’t remember the name of the cheese; it was a creamy French cheese with a mild flavor unless you got piece next to the rind.

calvinwazoo

Number 3 was a 2009 vintage blend of Syrah and Malvasia Bianca, also grown in Arizona, called Primer Paso. It had a very oaky nose, so overpowering that I couldn’t smell any fruit no matter how I swirled and sniffed. The oak was so strong it was almost like sniffing a cedar box. It was juicy, not jammy, on the taste, but there was nothing left for the finish. Not my favorite at all, but surprisingly it was the favorite wine of one of the pourers in the shop.

The final wine was made with grapes from California, a 2008 vintage blend of Sangiovese and Cabernet Sauvignon. Called Nagual de la Naga, I half expected something robust and even muscular, not just because it was the last wine in the flight, but also because one of the pourers described it as a “super Tuscan” style wine. Powerful it was not, but it was a nice wine. There was a light nose of cherry and cassis with a bit of herb and earth; very rustic. It was juicy and bright, the Cabernet nicely tempered, I thought, by the Sangiovese. It had nice tannin as well, suggesting that it might cellar for a few more years.

So there you have it. Even in a town like Jerome, Ariz., you can find wine tasting rooms with interesting offerings and even some surprises, like that Nebbiolo rosé.

A southern Rhône producer does it again

I wrote about the 2009 vintage of the Le Pavillon du Château Beauchêne rosé from the Côtes du Rhône with high praise for this juicy wine that packs delicious strawberry on a solid mineral beam with just the right amount of dryness. Well, guess what? The 2010 vintage is another great one from this producer, and is widely available.

The latest vintage is consistent with its fresh strawberry and bracing mineral qualities that give this a clean and fresh finish. Very food friendly, I enjoyed with everything from strongly-flavored soft cheese to pasta with tomato sauce. And it’s also excellent for just plain drinking! And perhaps best of all, you can find it for $10 a bottle!

Another great year for French rosé. I score this with an 8.5 using my scale at the left.

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.