When I started working in the wine business in the summer of 2007 I knew a few things about wine. First it was exponentially better to drink than the Natural Light my contemporaries were imbibing at the time. It provides a great way to meet women and convince them you’re more sophisticated than you actually are. And finally there was something I desired to learn about wine culturally, historically and socially; anyone can order a martini and look good doing so but in the world of wine you are constantly finding out new and interesting things. Yet for all the knowledge I thought I had gathered nothing was more humbling than going to work in a wine store, where the people above you spent most of their lives buying, selling and learning about wine. From my time with them I’ve learned a lot about spotting good wines.

First of all, labels mean absolutely nothing, so when you go to buy wine don’t even look at the front label ignore it, there is more useful information on the back like a good importer. In this era of opulence and visually stimulated purchasing, Louis Vutton and Cadillac, take a more refined and dare I say classier approach. I am reminded of the movie Tommy Boy with the late great Chris Farley. Tommy is selling Callahan Break Pads; one of his retailers says there isn’t a guarantee on Callahan’s box. Tommy says you can put a guarantee on shit and its still shit, same thing with wine - creative picture means the winery spent all the money on a design and not the juice. Like a guarantee vs. the actual product. There can and often will be a cute picture on the bottle but the juice, more times than not, is still absolute Swill (a colloquialism used to describe wine not worth drinking). Read the rest of this entry »

White Zinfandel has certainly ruined many opportunities for rosés in the United States. Slowly they are appearing in restaurants and at wine bars, yet, it is only the brave that are drinking this pink sensation. The rest of us, myself included until recently, don’t want people to believe that we might be drinking White Zinfandel. In reality, the only person that will care, and should care, what you are drinking is you, unless someone else is buying your drink, but that is more geared for the topic of economics, which I won’t be covering here.

I was recently at a wine bar in Paris with friends for dinner. When it came time to order our wine, I was looking at the reds, and by accident I ordered a Cotes-du-Provence thinking it was red. The server came back with our drinks. We had a rainbow of wines sitting on our table, one ordered white, another red, and apparently I ordered a rosé. A bit reluctant at first, I considered sending it back, but quickly remembered the French customer service policy…

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Stormhoek Pinotage Rose rocks the party with rock-candy colour intensity, bold cherry and strawberry aroma and a concentrated super juicy fruity palate. Drinking it over ice in a tumbler is a nice touch, and it certainly raises Rose’s game. This wine makes my front line.

When it comes to Pinotage, you should also check out Peter May’s site at http://pinotage.org. He has written several articles for Grape Thinking, here and here, and we still have 4 more postings on the series. Thanks Peter!

People will take some time to start drinking Rosé. I think perhaps the solution will be to display the bottle visibly on the table, lest anyone think you’re drinking White Zinfandel! This is the year Rosé will take off in the US, and there’s going to have to be some shelf-space cleared. One of my preferred Rosés is a Pinotage Rosé, as they usually combine the candied fruit together a refreshing off-dry profile and some faint plumb traces. I think that South Africa may just find its foothold in Rosé, or at least it has all the potential to.

I’m heading off to Greece in a little bit, and just to take the edge off thinking about packing etc. headed down to pick up a bottle, and was forced to compromise and buy a Pinot Noir Rosé from Sancerre. In the way Pinot Noir is, the rosé smelled like a rose-petal rosary I once bought in Jerusalem, coupled with a light redcurrant note. Its pink-grapefruit blush was magnificent, and all in all this is a perfect wine to include in your summer drinking.