Drinking The World

Recently I was invited to The Pink Party, a Rosé wine tasting event co-sponsored by Maximilian Riedel, CEO of Riedel Crystal of America and Living Beyond Breast Cancer (LBBC), an education and support organization for breast cancer survivors.

For the past few years Riedel Crystal has been making special wine glasses from which a portion of the proceeds are donated to LBBC. This year the specially designed glasses are made especially for drinking dry Rosé wines and showing off their attributes to the best advantage. This event premiered the new Riedel limited edition Pink Vinum Rosé glass, that sports a light pink stem, benefiting Living Beyond Breast Cancer.

The party was held on Wednesday September 26, 2007 at Duvet, a lounge in NYC with a bed theme. I have heard about places like this, where you and a group of friends and new acquaintances can loll around on enormous beds, getting toasted while you try not to spill your cocktails and wine all over yourselves and the bright white sheets. Have you ever had one of those enormous and trendy cocktails, served filled to the brim and it slops all over as you try to take that first sip? As I was driving down to NY from Maine on my way to the party, all that kept going through my mind was Rosé wine and white sheets. I expected to see quite a lot of pink by the end of the night, and not just from the pink ribbons supporting LBBC sported on shirt and dress fronts.

Follow up:

In the past Rosé wines have gotten a bad rap. Most people had only been exposed to inferior or sickly sweet Rosé, including that gastronomic travesty White Zinfandel. OK, I shouldn't bash all White Zin's, or sweet Rosé. Some of them are well crafted, and very tasty when served icy cold on a hot summer day. They can be great sipping wines, but I don't often take them seriously, for me they're usually more of a giggle. But, a well crafted dry Rosé can be a wine of beauty. Crisp, complex, refreshing, sprightly fruit, and often with charming spicy notes and good acid that I can admire; they can pair well with poultry, fish, pork, and spicy Latin or Asian dishes. Perfect as an aperitif before dinner, with dinner, or just by themselves. I keep a few bottles in my wine fridge along side my whites for when I want a friendly, but serious wine. I think they are perfect for when summer company drops by unexpectedly and you want to get the party started off right.

Even though it's full blown autumn in Maine, with the trees a riot of fall colors and cool days and chilly nights, it's an Indian Summer in NY. Almost 90 degrees and I'm in slacks and a white button down shirt feeling way overdressed. By the time I find parking and walk the few blocks to the party I'm getting slightly overheated and my shirt is sticking messily to me. I meet up with fellow blogger Joe Distefano and we head inside. Thankfully we were met with a blast of icy AC as we signed in, and were offered a beautiful and finely crafted Riedel Rosé wine glass to use for the tasting. Then we headed straight to some cold Rosé wine.

Lounging on the beds

There were tables set up all around the lounge with almost two dozen of wines to taste. I was pleased to see that I wasn't expected to lie around on one of the beds and would be able to walk about or grab a seat here and there. We made our way through the whole lot slowly over the next three hours, chatting, making tasting observations, and really enjoying many of the wines. Their were a few of them I didn't care for, too sweet, too light, not well balanced, poor structure, etc. But the majority of them were absolutely excellent. Dry, crisp, clean, complex, well balanced. Some were even thought provoking, making me stop and spend ten or twenty minutes chatting with the wine reps about the details of the wine and winery. Many of these were so good that I plan to review them over the coming months and I'll get the chance to tell you all about them.

The event was a success and I enjoyed myself. I had the opportunity to sample some truly excellent Rosé wines for an evening, something you don't get to do too often. I also got to put faces to names of people who I have been emailing with over the past year but never met, and I had a shocking surprise. One person with a male name, who for some reason I had pictured in my head as a short, chubby, balding man with nerdy glasses, turned out to be a most exceptionally attractive and interesting woman. I am sure there must have been a look of shock on my face when I heard her name. I just love it when my assumptions get tossed to the wind, in this case a gale. It makes me rethink my other assumptions and biases, just like the one I have about sweet Rosé, that most are awful. Tonight proved that there are more high quality ones than I had imagined, with a few that stood out remarkably.

Pink Truck anyone?

Sipping Banfi Rosa Regale Brachetto D'Acqui

So back to the wine. Some of the ones I tried, in no particular order are:
2006 Montes Cherub Rosé of Syrah, Chile. I apologize but I got my notes on the two Chilean wines confused. One was excellent and the other was very good, both in the dry style.
Carmen Classic Rosé, Chile. See my above comment.
Luna di Luna Premium Pink Merlot NV (non-vintage), Italy. On the sweeter and lighter side.
2007 Tall Horse Pinotage Rosé, South Africa. Pinotage wines, a South African specialty, are invariably mediocre or excellent. In my travels through the Wineland there, I found that the rare excellent ones are truly special and I like them more than most other varietals. This was my first Rosé Pinotage, I had never even heard of this before, and it was a real winner, one that I look forward to getting into my cellar. Dry, complex, spicy and with good fruit and acidity.
2006 Two Wives Pink Rosé from California. Sweet but racy, loaded with fruit, one of the sweeter Rosé that made me rethink my assumptions.
2006 Ch?teau Lassègue Pink Cricuet Rosé, France
2006 Yangarra Rosé, Australia
2006 Pink Truck Pink Wine from California. Sweet and very good, at the first sip I had to step back because of the contrasting flavors. As I sipped I finally got into the groove of what this wine was, and came to appreciate it.
2006 Matanzas Creek Merlot Rosé, California
2006 Kendall Jackson Grand Reserve Rosé, California
2006 La Crema Russian River Valley Pinot Noir Rosé, California. This was a very nice dry Rosé loaded with all kinds of fruit flavors, both berries and stone fruit and with some interesting creamy tones to it on the finish.
2006 Rosé d'Archipel, California, a young but classic dry Rosé.
2006 Mas de la dame Rosé du Mas, France. The wine rep disappeared before I got to this wine so I have no clue if it was any good.
2006 Antinori Scalabrone Bolgheri Rosato DOC, Italy. One of my favorites of the evening. I really liked the spicy and grassy notes and found this dry Rosé to be closer to the red wine side of the spectrum.
2005 Renwood Dry Rosé, California
2006 Sofia Rosé Carneros Pinto Noir, California. Another classic dry Rosé.
Banfi Rosa Regale Brachetto D'Acqui, Italy, is a tasty, sweet sparkling dessert wine that I reviewed very favorably last December.
Weingut Bründlmayer Brut Rosé sparkling wine, Austria. This is a truly excellent sparkling wine which I enjoyed very much and I went back for more several times. Some of you may remember when I wrote about champagne and sparkling wines last December and how much I like them, especially the Rosé. This one is a very lightly tinged with pink, dry sparkling wine from a well known wine maker who produces top notch Grüner Veltliner wines. I heartily recommend this sparkling wine for when you are in the mood to celebrate. I'm going to keep my eye out for it, there's a hole in my cellar just its size.

Maximilian Riedel giving first prize to winner

The night culminated with a fund raising raffle for an eleven day Celebrity Lines cruise of the Caribbean as the first prize. Sadly, I didn't win the cruise, which would have been just the thing to get me through the February blues this coming winter. Well, at least I got the chance to show my support for the Living Beyond Breast Cancer organization. This is very important to me personally. I have one friend who passed away from breast cancer, and another very close one who went through a massive battle with multiple re-occurrences over several years before she finally won out. It isn't just the surviving that counts with breast cancer. It's how well you live after-wards, and she has gone after life with gusto. She's a globe trotting marine biologist and sea bird researcher, who's an expert on penguins and professor by day; and an award winning competitive ballroom dancer, specializing in that most sexy of dances, the Argentine Tango, at night. My friend is a woman who is a role model for those who live beyond the battle of breast cancer. I can see her easily and joyfully climbing mountains with the members of LBBC as they engage in their annual mountain climbing events.

Maximilian Riedel and LBBC Director

For more info on Living Beyond Breast Cancer please go to www.LBBC.org and to show your support. Please make a donation. You can also help by purchasing a set of the special Riedel Rosé Vinum wine glasses with a portion of the proceeds going to the LBBC organization. You can get the glasses for apx. $50.00 for a set of two at Bed, Bath, and Beyond; as well as many other stores. Online they are available at www.WineEnthusiast.com where they are now on sale for $39.95, for limited edition Riedel Vinum glasses this is a steal.

Then enjoy some of the delicious, dry Rosé wines that are now available, in your new glasses, and make a toast to Living Beyond Breast Cancer. Because I am sure that all of you know someone who has been affected by this disease in some way.