Fear not the color pink!

We had a little get together the past holiday weekend and were blessed with good friends, good weather, and great food and drink. While we always offer "all three food groups" at our shindigs (liquor, beer and wine) the wine has become more of the focus over the years with our maturing group of friends leaning toward the grape. One particular wine caught my, or rather a few of my guests, attention. Not necessarily in a good way, at first. I had the reds in the house and cold buckets of sauvignon blanc, chardonnay and rose outside on the picnic table. The roses are where this post is leading. While being polite a couple guests seemed a bit surprised to find pink wine at my house. Leaving me to explain that you need not fear all that is pink. It is not necessarily white zinfandel and can be surprisingly dry and complex. While rose has been around longer than anyone reading this, it has been overshadowed in the past twenty years by sweet and simple white zinfandel. Since they generally look the same, many people assume the taste is similar. Of course this is not the case, and people often seem almost shocked when I explain that a rose can be made from any red grape. People really don't believe me when I tell them you can make a pink or even clear white cabernet. It really helps prove the point having a cabernet grape in hand and squeezing the very clear juice from the berry. Without going into too much detail, wine color comes from the time the juice spends soaking in the grape skins. Leave a barrel of cabernet juice in contact for an extended period and it turns dark red. Shorten that period and make it pink. Enter rose!

 The wines I was serving that day are both available and quite popular at Glen Lake Wine and Spirits. The first rose was Terra d'Oro. This delicious wine is made from 94% nebbiolo, a grape commonly found in Italy's Piedmont region. But also found in small quantities in Amador County, California. The remaining 6% is made from syrah. It has flavors of orange, grapefruit and peach. With an alcohol content of 12.5%, it doesn't burn through light fare foods. This pairs well with a great summer salad on a hot day or it can cool your palate when served with a spicy dish.

Our second pink offering of the day was Menage a Trois. This is a great "party wine" for several reasons I won't delve into. The couple I will touch on are the very affordable price to quality ratio and the delicious fruity delight this wine offers. If you concentrate on the wine, you can pick out most of the sweeter red fruits. Especially raspberry and strawberry. The wine is a combination of three grapes (hence the name, right?). Merlot, syrah, and gewurtztraminer make this wine a definite must try next time you are taking in the sun on your deck. Yes, I did say gewurtztraminer, weird but also intriguing.