Rock Rosé Season With These 21 Rosé Wines
Plus High Fives for: Botanica Pantry, Esquire's best bars, and new Foster the People!
I rarely need a reason to drink rosé. While I used to feel like it was relegated to rosé season (a.k.a. summer), I learned after tasting a wide variety that it is a category that can be enjoyed year round. Yet many of us seek out that delightfully dry, quaffable often-pale pink deliciousness during summer, so get ready to dive in.
Much like the orange wine (a.k.a. skin-contact white wine) I wrote about last month, rosé is made from a range of red grapes. Sure, you can call it skin-contact red wine, but why when rosé rolls off the tongue so nicely? It can be made from syrah, grenache, mourvedre, tempranillo, merlot, pinot noir, cinsault, and much more.
Rosé comes in many hues from cotton candy and peachy to salmon and berry. And its flavor profile ranges from a hint of saline backed by strawberry and watermelon to dry and acidic with notes of currant, raspberry, dried herbs, citrus, and chalk (in the best way).
Last year, I wrote about 16 rosé wines I loved and frankly, you can and should seek these out. I recently had a few of these (Robert Sinskey vin gris of pinot noir and Kind of Wild Syrah-Grenache Rosé, for example) and they are just as delicious today. This year, I’m offering 21 rosés from around the world to find for your summer sipping pleasure — even into fall and winter. So without further ado, let’s get to the wine. Note, prices listed are either suggested retail or average cost from across the Internet.
21 rosé wines to check out this summer
2023 M. Chapoutier Belleruche, Cotes du Rhone, France ($13)
I drink this wine year after year and it consistently delights. From its braille-enhanced label (fun fact: Michel Chapoutier started adding braille in 1994 to make his wines more accessible to people who are blind or vision impaired) to its medium body and all the red fruit, spice, and acid in between, this one is always a winner.
2021 Davis Bynum Jane’s Vineyard, Russian River Valley, Sonoma ($30)
This is beauty wrapped in a light pink-slightly orange package. The pinot noir benefits from the influence of the nearby Pacific and you can taste that in its fresh acidity. It’s light, crisp, and refreshing with hints of citrus, watermelon, grapefruit, ripe honeydew, and red berries.
2022 Atlantis, Madeira, Portugal ($11)
OK, I absolutely LOVE this slightly fuller-bodied wine made from the Portuguese tinta negra grape. It has fresh berries on the nose with ripe strawberry, raspberry, watermelon and a bit of orange citrus. It's super juicy, bright, spritzy and YUMMMMMY. It has a long fruity finish yet definitely dry and not sweet with mellow acid. It would be good with seafood, Indian, and some Italian pastas like cacio e pepe or a lightly spicy red sauce.
Keep reading with a 7-day free trial
Subscribe to Something Glorious with Ari Bendersky to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.