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Real men don’t eat quiche but do they drink rose? We’ll be discussing the
growing popularity of rosé wines in Ireland on the Sean Moncreiff show at about
3.20 pm this Friday 20/7/07 on Newstalk 106-108FM.
Market statistics show that
in 2006 about 5% of wine sales were rosé, which is something of a shock when
for years they have trundled along at 1-2%. The pick up seems to have started
about 2-3 years ago. Who’s drinking it and why? Clearly more women than men
are consumers here but there must be men drinking their share too.
The biggest sector is the
Californian blush category and most of that in 1/4 bottles in pubs I’d guess
and mostly drunk by women. Pink is a very girlie thing and not just with kids.
So what are men to do if they want to join the pink revolution?
Roughly speaking rosé wines
can be divided into three sorts: the girlie ones, metrosexual ones and the ones
real men can feel happy drinking.
Some pink wines have serious
visual girlie cues like flowers on the label. Diageo make no bones about the
fact that their Californian brand Blossom Hill is aimed fairly and squarely at
women. In fact most of these American medium dry so called blush wines are aimed
at women. Others in this category would include Rosé d’Anjou from the Loire.
Increasingly popular though
are styles that might be said to appeal to both sexes, what you might term
metrosexual and these are often New World brands like Jacob’s Creek or Santa
Rita or more switched on European producers with modern labelling. The wine
style here is usually vibrantly fruity but dry and a colour that is pink with an
almost blue tinge.
Card carrying lumberjacks or
miners who want the world to have no doubts at all about their sexuality should
stick with the European classics like Tavel from the Southern Rhone. Wines like
this are dry and tend to have more of an orangey brown colour akin to salmon or
onion skin, so there’s no pink to be self conscious about.
Wines to be tasted on the
show include M & S Siclilian Blush Pinot Grigio at
just €5.99. The PG grape is neither truly green not black but
somewhere in between so it can be used to make white wines or, as here, very
pale rosé wines. This one is light and fruity, seems dry and while it’s
hardly a serious wine it’s not exactly expensive either. Interestingly M &
S put all their pink wines in green glass to protect them from light. I’ve
just come back from Sicily and there’s a lot going on and we’ll look at that
soon.
Next up is a new label to me
discovered at Taste of Dublin on the www.uncorked.ie stand called Olvena
Merlot 2006 from Somontano at €9.99. It’s also available from
Sweeney’s Glasnevin, The Vintry Rathgar, Daly’s in Boyle, The Wine Vault
Portlaoise and Next Door in Manorhamilton. It has bags of fruit and unusual
depth for a rosé. I hesitate to use the term a serious wine but there’s no
shortage of berry and cherry fruit. The price is keen too as Somontano wines are
often more like €14-15.
Lastly we’ll have a look at Jacob’s Creek Rosé
2006, which is widely available at €8.99. It has lots of fresh
berry fruit with a background of light spice. When it launched a couple of years
ago I told the importers not to expect much in the way of sales even though it
was decent wine. They said the first shipment had sold in two weeks no the
projected three months! It’s been onwards and upwards ever since.
listen
live to News Talk 106-108 FM
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