For me, the quintessential summer wine is Rose. Rose wines come in all colors from really really pale pink through to dark magenta-purple and are made in three distinct processes. For today's Marriage Mondays I thought I would utilize rose and discuss the three techniques of rose production before getting to this week's contestants, all of which promise to be delish on their own, but will they work with our lovely rose is the question.
Rose wine is made in three distinct ways:
1. Skin contact - Red wine grapes are crushed and the juice remains in contact with the grapes' skin for two to three days, imparting the lovely pink color we are all familiar with. Obviously, the longer the wine is in contact with the skin, the darker the color of the rose.
2. Blending - Not a very commonly utilized technique, this is a pretty obvious technique - white wine grapes are blended with red wine grapes to make rose.
3. Saignee (Bleeding the vats) - During the production of red wines, sometimes a winemaker wants to increase the tannins or deepen the color of their wine and therefore some of the pink-ish hued juice must be removed and thus the remaining wine in the vats is intensified and you now have a fantastic byproduct that can be utilized to create a rose.
So those are the three techniques of making my favorite summer drinking wine! I'm sure part of you is wondering, does she drink rose wines year round? And the answer to that question is no, I drink them from about May till September, why you may ask? Well, I think it really is just personal preference and I think that they are much more well suited to warmer temperatures and longer days.
A few of my favorite roses:
1. Channing Daughters, Rosati di Merlot
2. McCall Vineyard's Marjorie Rose
3. A to Z's Rose
4. Cotes de Provence MiP, Domaine Sainte Lucie
And of course I love Bubbly Roses as well, but that's a whole different topic!
Imagine utilizing Channing Daughters Rosati di Merlot here -- light in color and in taste, this wine almost has a bounce in its step! Full of strawberry, watermelon, mineraly, and spicy notes, this rose is made from one hundred percent Merlot grapes and sure is juicy in all the right ways. It packs a lovely mouth feel and a nice lingering finish, trust me you won't be disappointed!
So let's get going with our three cheesy contestants:
Contestant Number #1: Ploughgate Creamery's Hartwell - Hailing from the great cheesemaking state of Vermont, this contestant is a soft-rippened cow's milk creamy cheese -- vaguely reminiscent of a Camembert, this cheese is lighter on the cream and heaviness than most cow's milk cheeses and is full of grassy, hay like notes. It's a fantastic picnic cheese as it is creamy and luscious, but not too creamy that it won't hold up in the heat. It's almost slinky and velvety in consistency..
Contestant Number # 2: Old Chatham Sheepherding Company's Ewe's Blue - Landing a little closer to home here, this blue-veined baby is quite the piquant mouthful, spicy, peppery, pungent, and utterly fantastic. Made from one hundred percent sheep's milk and inoculated with Penicilium Roqueforti, this blue gives its European cousins a run for its money.
Contestant Number # 3 : Uplands Pleasant Ridge Reserve - Moving a little farther away from home, our last and final contestant hails from another great cheesemaking state, Wisconsin and is an aged washed rind unpasteurized cow's milk cheese made in the style of the great old school French cheese, Beaufort. Nutty, buttery, herbacious, grassy, full of caramel and butterscotch notes with a nice heft, this sure is a memorable cheese. Great for every occasion, this is a cheese that proves to you how successful American Artisanal cheesemaking is!!
So who do you think will win out for a chance to be paired with our lovely rose wines? Will it be the Vermonter? The New Yorker? Or the Wisconsonian? And is there one specific answer?
Check back tomorrow for your results...
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