The Dog Days Of Summer

Our Piedmont Wine Society leader, John Brooks, wrote the following thoughts on rose' wines.

THE DOG DAYS OF SUMMER

"Give me wine to wash clean the weather stains of care." Ralph Waldo Emerson

"July means hot days, warm nights...afternoons by the pool and barbecues on the deck..sitting in the shade gorging on fresh corn and home-grown tomatoes. It's a time to enjoy life and friends and family. And when you enjoy life and friends and family you want a wine that goes with the occasion. But which wine? It's too hot for some of the big reds that we normally enjoy. And chardonnay doesn't stand up to heat very well. Sauvignon blanc is not a bad option. But increasingly, people are turning to rose'.

How much are they turning to rose'? In France, right now, one out of every five bottles of wine sold is rose'. That's a dramatic change in recent years.

Rose' has some of the crispness and acidity of good summer white wines but can be larger, with a little more substance. This summer I keep a bottle in the refrigerator pretty much all the time."

The photos above show the five kinds of rose' wine that John bought for us to sample with our dinner. Did you note the variety of red colors from pale pink to deep raspberry red? In fact, in England rose' is called pink. Now here is the info below on the five rose's we sampled in case you would like to try some very good rose'.

2007 Jean-Luc Colombo Cote Bleue (Provence in France)

About $12

2005 Fortitude (Napa Valley)

About $14

2007 Tegernseerhof Rose' Zweigelt (Austria)

About $14 ***

2007 Valle Reale Vigue Nuove Cerasuolo (D'Abruzzo in Italy)

About $15 *****

Domaine de la Mordoree Tavel (Provence in France)

About $22 ****

Notice that I gave the last three wine selections stars. Jack and I liked best the Italian rose' from the region of Montepulciano D'Abruzzo. And that last bottle of rose' from Provence was from the Tavel region of Provence which is the best known region in the world for rose'.