Price, quality make Spanish rose wines excellent choices
Say "Ole!” to a rose from Spain this summer.
Known as rosado in Spanish, rose is a great choice when temperatures rise. It has the lightness and chill-ability of a white and the fuller flavor usually associated with a red. And while roses can be fresh and fruity, banish any thought that these dry pink wines are sweet like the much-maligned white zinfandel.
View More Most Popular Categories... "The public has come to understand dry rose is a versatile wine and a great pick for spring and summer weather. Once consumers figure that out, they never go back,” said Jeff Morgan, author of "Rose: A Guide to the World's Most Versatile Wine.”
Morgan, a Napa Valley rose winemaker and a founder of RAP: Roses Avengers and Producers (a group dedicated to "righting the wrongs done to dry rose”), said that Spanish roses appeal because of their style and price.
"I find Spanish roses to be more consistent in style and quality than roses out of France ,” he said.
"You get that soft, fruit-forward lightness from Spanish roses.”
And the wines can be a bargain, as Morgan ruefully acknowledged in an interview.
"While American roses and French roses are going up in price quite a bit, the Spanish roses are staying cheap. I don't know how they do it,” he said. "You get a bang for your buck with Spanish rosado.”
According to Morgan's book, there are three main rose regions in Spain: Rioja, Navarra and Catalonia.
"It's hard to ascribe any particular unifying style to Spanish rosado,” Morgan wrote.
"Like good roses everywhere, they tend to be light-textured, with good acidity and subtle cherry and raspberry flavors. In comparison to French roses, the Spanish wines often display rounder texture with more fruit-forward flavors.”
Winemakers in Navarra, in north central Spain and the country's best-known region for roses, use mostly garnacha grapes, also known as grenache. In Rioja, south of Navarra, winemakers will often blend a white grape, viura (also known as macabeo), with tempranillo or garnacha. Morgan says the use of white grapes helps make for a more consistent end product.
Given these grape varieties, regions and blends, it stands to reason Spanish roses come in a wide range of styles; all are food-friendly. Spanish roses go great with foods right off the grill: salmon steaks, shrimp kebabs, hamburgers or barbecue sauce-glazed chicken.
Roses also are a good choice to pair with spicy fare because the wine's fruit-forward flavor can literally take the heat.
And a rose can adapt to the richness of shellfish in all of its forms, from a boiled lobster to the shrimp, clams and mussels of a classic Spanish paella.
For Morgan, who reports there are still instances of "rose racism,” this summer has the makings of a "perfect rose storm.”
"All the elements have come together: smarter consumers, better wines, more of a food-wine focus,” he said. "All have brought about a true rose renaissance.”