Wine Blogging Wednesday #9.. my kind of assignment..

I don't think I can recall ever having bought a Rosé wine before. But the fine folks at Becks & Posh are hosting this month's wine blogging event. And the theme, as you may have guessed, was to select and taste a Rosé wine. And I'm such a sucker for an assignment. Especially when it forces you to work outside your usual boundaries. Now I had a reason to buy a Rosé, research it’s production and pay attention to how it tasted. If only my 7th grade teacher were here to smile at me and commend me for following all the rules so well. She was the same teacher who saved me from ridicule when she helped to free my braces which had become caught in the sleeve of my sweater. There I was, an open mouth with my arm dangling from it. There were two lessons learned that day:

1. don’t bury your face in your arm to hide your laughter during class. The teacher already knows that you are misbehaving.
2. Keep your mouth closed in the vicinity of wide knit if you wear braces.

But that is just one of the many self-confidence boosting experiences of my childhood. The point of this post is supposed to be the Rosé.

So I went to a local wine store (to those who speak English in Heidelberg, it’s name is quite clever: Wein Ott) and selected a Bordeaux Rosé from Gironde, France.

Here are the details
Produced and bottled by: Chateau La Commanderie de Queyret
proprietor: Claude Comin
Vintage: 2003
grapes: 50% merlot, 50% cabernet sauvignon
webpage: www.vignobles-comin.com
cost: 5.50 Euros

I don’t think I am particularly good at describing wines, but I will do my best.

When I first smelled the wine, I could definitely smell something red about it. I guess that would be the tannins. There was a fruity element as well. The website indicates that it has a strawberry scent. I could detect the strawberries, if I held the glass a slight distance from my nose. But there was also something earthy and rich at the same time. Blackberries and pears kept coming to mind. If you mixed those 3 together with a pinch of grass, you might get this wine. But I could have been delirious by that point from all the excessive inhaling. When I started to smell Bazooka Joe bubble gum, I knew it was time to move on.

Now for the taste of it.. hmm.. the first hit had more of a tang than I expected. It had that same effect on my tongue as carbonated water does. As I said, I’m new to Rosé, and the flavour of this one did not strike me at all. I didn’t really taste the flavours that I had smelled. Everything seemed to be overpowered by the bite of it. And the bite lingered in my throat after each swallow. The website indicates that it goes well with cold meat. And I was tempted to go and buy some to see if it would improve the wine. But then I realized that would be defeating the purpose. So, my conclusion is that I would not likely buy it again. But I am curious to see how it compares with other Rosés, if this one is the norm or if it falls lower on the scale than most. It certainly gives me a reason to try another Rosé in the future. It did have a very appealing colour though. And if I just needed a full glass to sit and look pretty with, this one would do the trick.