Five of the best rosΓ© wines to take on a picnic | Fiona Beckett on drink
The usual suspects from Provence, RhΓ΄ne and Languedoc flex their muscles this year, as do tempranillos and bottles from Corsica and Greece. As ever, though, do look for a recent vintage β¦
So many people drink rosΓ© year-round these days that itβs easy to forget that it was once regarded as faintly embarrassing. Clearly theyβre still at that stage in deepest Umbria, where I recently heard a posh rosΓ© described as βa womanβs wineβ β and by a cool-looking young Italian in his 20s, not an unreconstructed 60-year-old with a hairy chest and a medallion, which somehow made it worse. The men in our group indignantly replied that they, too, drank rosΓ©, as indeed most men do. The stuff isnβt even self-consciously referred to as βbrosΓ©β these days, either.
That said, modern rosΓ© is almost invariably a pale baby pink, usually from Provence, which has cornered the market in the more-of-a-white-wine-than-a-pink sort of style. The best lookalikes, if you like drier rosΓ©s, tend to be from France, too, mostly from the southern RhΓ΄ne and Languedoc, though theyβre even drier up in the Loire than they used to be (Morrisons has a Touraine rosΓ© in its The Best range at Β£8.50, which is not a bad price, but would be even more attractive on a multi-buy deal).
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