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In case you missed New Zealand’s inaugural National Rosé Day last year, you get your chance to leap tipsily aboard the salmon-pink bandwagon on February 5.
Rosé is a versatile wine, which means you can make it with nearly any red grape and blend in a number of white ones for good measure. In New Zealand, we generally use pinot noir or merlot, while in the rosé heartland of Provence the base grape is usually grenache with an alphabet soup of other varieties going into the blend.
So how are we looking on the world rosé stage? Marisco is New Zealand’s largest producer and their label, The Ned, is shaping up to be a Marlborough export success story to challenge that of sauvignon blanc.
Brent Marris, the owner of Marisco and a winemaker, was in Provence late last year on a fact-finding mission and has keenly observed the rosé revolution since picking up on it four years ago in England.
“What we produce here has more fruit drive, and a little bit more opulence than in Provence,” Brent explains. “We’re finding consumers in Europe and America are appreciating this New World style. In places like Florida and California, we can’t supply enough.”
The Ned blends pinot noir and pinot gris for a clean, fresh, bright and dry wine with pretty salmon-pink colour and rose petal flavours. You start drinking with your eyes, Brent says, so the wine is generally much brighter than the pale orange hue common in Provence, but is far from the deeper red rosé that people have come to associate with cloyingly sweet wine.
“What we’re doing at Leefield Station in the Waihopai Valley is to plant and grow grapes specifically for rosé – it’s why I was in Provence, looking at how they grow their grapes for rosé and how I can interpret it back in New Zealand.
Because it’s a crisp, slightly dry summer wine it matches salads and seafood well and the hint of spice works well with Asian food, Brent says. Where you see sauvignon blanc matches working, rosé can easily step into the breach.
How to make frosé
If your glass of rose isn’t refreshing you enough, then turn it into a fruity slushy cocktail called a frosé. The rosé-based slushy was a hit over the summer in the US and now it’s warm enough for us to get into the latest frozen cocktail sensation.
Take rosé as the starting point and then you can pair it with puréed strawberries and vermouth or grenadine in a slushie machine (add a shot of vodka, too, if you’re running late for your altered state). Other iterations involve mixing rosé with lemon juice and sugar and placing it in the freezer for around 6 hours to chill.
Ponsonby eatery Gypsy Caravan has been all over the frosé for quite some time and have a few different recipes. You can give it a go yourself – try this simple frosé recipe.
Feature image via: Pinterest.
This article was first published in Taste magazine.
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