Sips: the first rosé

The temperature is a chilly 56, but I am thinking of the warmer days to come this evening and sipping the season’s first rosé, an excellent wine from the Languedoc region of southern France, a 2008 Vin de Pays du Gard from Roc d’Anglade, a small producer of organic wines. This blend of syrah, grenache and carignan is a delicious, pale-salmon-colored wine that is very dry but has expressive red-fruit essences, notably raspberry and strawberry, with touches of lime and vanilla on the finish and a nice little tannic  framework. It’s a model of rosé elegance. As for the vintage (2008), it has obviously been around for a year or so.  While just about everyone seems bent on drinking only the latest rosé releases – the 2009s are coming into the market now – the Roc d’Anglade reminded me that rosés are just fine in the bottle for a year or two; in fact, I would venture a guess that this one, with its expressive fruit, has benefitted a bit from a year of bottle age. Even though I’m shivering a bit, I’m enjoying this first rosé of summer as I write this. Some 500 cases were produced. A check of wine-searcher.com reveals that it sells for $23 wine at Sherry-Lehman in New York. A pricey rosé, but then you do get what you pay for. A Becky Wasserman Selection, imported by USA Wine Imports, New York. (Received as a press sample.)

del.icio.us Tags: Rosé,French rosés,Roc d'Anglade,Edward Deitch,Laguedoc rosé,Becky Wasserman,Sherry-Lehman