Rosé wines have become increasingly popular over the past few years and Negociants is pleased to have a number of premium Rosé wines in our portfolio from New Zealand and the rest of the world.

Summer is coming and summer entertaining is the perfect time to be drinking Rosé. Refreshing and crisp, it is a great summer aperitif but also great with food.

In the past, Rosé had suffered from a reputation as ‘lolly’ water, often made after a bad vintage when the red grapes could not be made into a decent table wine. This is definitely not the case these days with wineries who have seen the global trend towards lighter and drier styles working hard in the vineyard and the winery to ensure higher quality wines are produced.

The most commonly used varietals in New Zealand are Pinot Noir and Merlot. Many of the best examples are now produced from grapes dedicated to Rosé production rather than as by-products of the production of another red wine in the range. This has led to greater balance and elegance being achieved through harvesting at the right time for the style.

One of the most attractive things about drinking Rosé on a beautiful summer’s day is the beauty of the pink chilled wine sitting in the glass, beckoning you to drink it. The colouring of the Rosé is greatly dependent on how long the red grape skins are in contact with the grape juice; the shorter contact time, the lighter the colour, while extended time can produce a range of colours in the pink/red spectrum and also increases tannin and flavour.

At a recent blind tasting of Rosé wine distributed by Negociants, the wines which were poured into glass jugs ranged in colour from very pale baby pink through to a bright almost ‘ribena’ colour with varying shades in between. I believe that most of our sales team thought that they may be able to use the colour as a clue to which wine they were drinking but there were so many different shades that it really didn’t help.

All of the wines were dry to off dry in style with flavours leaning towards red berry notes with some citrus and watermelon and I can honestly say that they were all easy drinking and delicious.

The wines in our list are of course predominantly New Zealand Rosé, along with a couple of Aussie and European wines which added a lot of interest, as the team tried to pick the differences in styles between the different regions and countries.

The team were asked to vote on their top three wines, which was a hard task and the results were wide ranging with all of the wines scoring some points. The top three were not clear stand outs and I won’t give away the results in this report. However, it was a fascinating tasting which showed us just how good the wines all are and how confident the team can be in selling these wines for all to enjoy this Summer.

- Tina Rutherford, Executive Assistant