Getting Back Into The Game With Some Fancy French Rosé

We've had a bit of an extended hiatus (thank you harvest) and it seemed fitting to do another rosé (although to be completely honest I just really like rosé). I was walking through the wine aisle at Trader Joe's and this guy caught my eye! It's a 2014 Rosé from Bordeaux, which is a little old (more on this later) but for $5.99 I was willing to take a chance on it. The wine is a bit muted, less aromatically invasive than the Viñas Chilenas wine we had last year-- but they're from the same vintage so that's not too surprising. In spite of this, the mouthfeel and flavors are great, with a little bit of honey and lemon candy with pleasantly balanced acidity. With the bonus points it gets for being French this wine is the perfect porch pounder! Great for the unseasonably warm winter weather we've been having.

2014 Les Portes de Bordeaux: Bordeaux Rosé

12%ABV

5.99 at Trader Joe's

Tasting Notes

Theme: It's hot, let's drink!

Sight

It has a cool salmon-orange-peach color to it. Very attractive, a little more refined than the super extracted pink "White Zinfandel" color that some rosés have. 

Nose

The wine isn't super expressive aromatically but there are some nice overtones of rose and violet, with tart green apple and lemon underneath. After the acidic aromas there are white peach and honeysuckle aromas, denoting the slight sweetness that was yet to come.

Palate

Tastes like honey at first, with soft acid up front that builds towards the back of your tongue. There's a pleasant sweetness and slightly syrupy texture-- not enough that I would classify it as a "sweet wine" but enough to keep the acid in check and make the wine easily drinkable and tasty. There's a bit of a candy lemon flavor that develops, like those Lemon Drop candies, or a pink lemonade.

Overall, we liked it. There's nothing too special going on but there's nothing bad either, and it's very tasty. I would wager that this wine was a lot more expressive a year ago and that we're seeing it this cheap because it didn't sell completely at the time so the leftover inventory was sold to TJ's on the cheap, which would explain the low price point. It's a perfect porch-pounder-- balanced acidity/sweetness and pleasant flavors-- it's French, so you can drink it with your friends and feel fancy; plus it's at an easy to swallow price! 

8.5/10

Some Extracurricular Notes on Rosé

So earlier in the post I mentioned that this wine was a little old, which may sound a little ridiculous considering we're talking about a wine that was made less than 16 months ago! The reason I say this is because Rosé wines, like some early-drinking white wines such as Sauvignon Blanc, change very rapidly once they are bottled and are often at their peak drinking age sometime around 5 months after crush (which would have been February or March of 2015 for this wine). Rosé wine aromas are composed primarily of what are known as "Secondary Aromas", which are aromas deriving from fermentation (or aromas turned volatile during fermentation). More specifically, the dominant aromas in most rosé wines come from esters, which break down as wine ages and are responsible for the fruity and floral aromas that we find in young wines- and consequently, the lack of fruity and floral aromas in aged wine.

This wine, being pretty muted on the aroma was pretty immediately identifiable as being a little bit past its prime just by the lack of fruity and floral aromas that should have accompanied it. This isn't to say that the wine is no longer good though! This wine was perfectly drinkable (poundable) and being a little bit past its prime is likely why we're able to get the wine at such a nice price now-- often if a wine doesn't perform well in its original retail placement it'll get sold to a different retailer to go into the "bargain bin". More for us! I'd say this wine will remain delicious through mid-summer or August of this year, but probably not much later, so buy it now and try it out! It's the perfect wine for this unseasonably warm weather.

Being a French wine, we don't know exactly which grape varieties were used in the production of this wine (they care more about location than cultivar) but being from Bordeaux we can assume that it's primarily either Cab or Merlot. Probably Cab Sauv, based on the fact that the winery is located on the West Bank, but judging by the color it could be Merlot based (see the Wine Folly graphic below).

Cheers,
A&P