8 Great Rosés

As temperatures rise, we’re celebrating rosé. Here are 8 Great Rosés available to buy individually, sure, (click the individual links) but also available as a pack for £8 less than their cumulated individual prices.

La Rose No. 7, Crémant de Limoux – a sparkling dry rosé made down in the south-west of France to the same traditional technique as is used in Champagne (although the winemakers of the South-West claim to have actually invented the technique), this blend of Pinot Noir, Chardonnay and Chenin Blanc gives a delightful mix of stone fruit aromas, a good squeeze of pink grapefruit juice, nuances of caramel and cream with a nice biscuity finish. Yum!

Mirabello Rosato – An Italian rosé made from the Pinot Grigio grape, a naturally pink skinned grape, most frequently used to make white wines but when left to macerate on its skins for a short period produces a delicately pink, dry refreshing rosé. This one’s great value at £11, with notes of rose, redcurrant and a hint of almond.

Gris Marin, Vin Gris des Sables de Camargue – Strictly speaking, this is not a vin rosé but a vin gris – a pale rosé made from the naturally pink skinned grape, Grenache Gris. (It’s a greyish pink, hence the name.) The usual rosé flavours are there – peach, melon, pink grapefruit – but what stands out in this wine is the fact that it’s made from grapes grown in sandy soiled vineyards bordering the salt flats of The Camargue, the salt marshes of the Rhône delta. These sandy, salty soils produce wine that is both subtly smooth and slightly salty like a refreshing sea breeze.

Les Cerisiers Cotés du Rhône – From the southern, Provençal end of the Côtes du Rhône, the rosés made in this region are subtly different from those of the trendy neighbouring Côtes de Provence. Rhône rosé is a bi-product of red wine making, the juice being drawn from the red wine making, either at the pressing stage (as is this case) or in the maceration period, after a period as short as half a day. This is a win-win technique, producing a more structured, complex rosé, a lighter, fresher version of its red sibling, and simultaneously increasing the concentration in the resultant red wine. Les Cerisiers is aptly named not just because its vineyards are surrounded by cherry orchards, but because you’ll find bursts of crisp red cherry a dominant note in this lovely, ‘proper’ rosé.

Edalise Côtes de Provence – a rosé which we describe as a Whispering Angel beater. Not as difficult as it might sound, as we believe that what was once a great, proper Provence rosé has become both sweeter and blander as it has become increasingly mass-produced. But this one is neither sweet nor bland. It’s subtle, yes – Provence rosé should be – and oh so pale. If you don’t look very carefully at the wine in your glass, you’d easily mistake it for a white wine. It’s crisp and refreshing and we find notes of white peaches, redcurrants and mandarin. What stands out to us – and is why we call it a WA-beater – is its smooth, creamy finish.

Bréton Côtes de Provence – A Kensal Rise favourite for six years now, we’ve stocked this great rosé from pretty much the day that we opened back in 2019, which was pretty much the time that our friend Mike started importing it into his global rosé hub, his house 2 streets over! Truly this is Kensal Rise’s rosé! Again think classic Provence rosé, very pale, lots of red fruit and citrus, we find notes of pink grapefruit particularly to the fore. (Also available as a magnum.)

Nannette’s Rosé, Balfour Estate, Kent – An English rosé produced from the classic Champagne blend of grapes: Chardonnay, Pinot Noir and Pinot Meunier, the pale pink colour derives from short macération the skins of the two Pinots. As this is, definitively a cool-climate rosé, expect cooler, crisper, more direct flavours of redcurrant and red apple with clean, exhilarating acidity. You like your rosé clean and dry, you’re going to love this!

Dye Bleeding, Paarl, South Africa – almost a contradiction in terms, this is an orange rosé! Orange? Rosé? Orange wines are, generally, white wines made using the red wine technique of macerating the fermenting grape juice with its skins, to transfer colour (orange wines tend to use white grape varieties which are naturally golden when fully ripe, hence giving the classic amber orange colour that gives the wine its category name) and dry, flavourful tannins. But rosé wine is made by short periods skin contact anyway. Leave it longer and it becomes red wine. So how can a rosé wine be and orange wine too? The answer is in the grape variety, Grenache Gris, which with it’s grey/pink skin colour will never produce a red wine and hence can be left longer in contact with the juice to create this uniquely, deep and earthy rosé. It’s astonishingly good with blue cheese, by the way.