Spring is about to arrive and the rise in temperatures these days proves it. The terraces fill up, there are more people in the streets and the days get longer. In this selection we recommend seven rosé wines to accompany the new days of flowers and heat, all fresh and light, perfect for enjoying a sunny afternoon with friends. In addition, you can find options from six euros.
Do not miss these unique bottles that are included in The Wine Guide 2023, directed by Lluís Tolosa with the collaboration of Ferran Centelles, Meritxell Falgueras, María José Huertas, Alicia Estrada and Zoltan Nagy.
If until now they had told you that the rosé must be of the year, here I bring you this rare avis. Every year I try to taste as many rosé wines of all styles as possible, but I think the one that has marked me the most this year has been this 200 Monges Rosado Reserva 2017.
Last year it won the Enoturismo y Desarrollo Local prize in the Best Of Wine Tourism Bilbao-Rioja, for the recovery and dissemination of the cultural legacy of the disappeared monastery of San Martín de Albelda, especially the Albeldense Codex dated in the year 974. It is a An early medieval miniature jewel conceived as a compendium of 10th century knowledge, linked to the Peña Salagona caves, where the ancient rock monastery was once located between the 5th and 10th centuries. More than 200 monks lived there.
Tasting this rosé in the winery, Miguel Ángel Rodríguez, winemaker and owner of Bodegas Vinicola Real, told me that each wine chooses its time. I didn’t quite understand him and asked him why. He decided that his best wines would mature in his underground cellars until, due to their character, they were capable of moving, of moving. And really, in several of his wines he has succeeded.
This rosé is peculiar, surprising, and has the ability to transport you to various emotional states: calm, joy, drama, even surprise and admiration. When tasting it, it is persistent, you fall in love with the subtle hints of forest fruit and the toasted notes with nuances of aromatic herbs. On the palate it is pure silk! Get hold of one of the 6,600 bottles and let yourself be surprised and fall in love with the color pink.
Sometimes the technical language of the sommelier becomes jargon that is not very intelligible to non-professionals. However, one of the sommelier adjectives seems magnificent to me: unicorn wines.
A unicorn is a mythological being. A fabulous animal in the shape of a horse and with a straight horn in the middle of its forehead. An imaginary being, so beautiful and pure that it fascinates the whole family, especially the little ones.
In the world of wine, bottled unicorns do exist, but they are so rare and precious that getting one of them is quite a feat. Wines such as those produced by Richard Leroy, Overnoy, Mugnier, in France. Or the Tondonia Blanco, Sketch, Trafalgar, in Spain, are some examples. Here I present a new unicorn: Akutain Rosado Gran Reserva 2016. Only 600 bottles of this vintage.
In this case, I played as an outstanding student and I bought a good quantity of this wine for the Enigma restaurant run by Albert Adrià, where I usually collaborate. In a place as creatively talented as Enigma, anything is possible, even finding a unicorn.
Jon Peñagaricano is the owner of Bodegas Akutain and of this rosé wine. An idiosyncratic wine, because there are not many Gran Reserva rosés in La Rioja. Fluid on the palate, with an expression of evolution and marked wood. Akutain is an example of the excellent use of traditional winemaking techniques. Tasting it is like drinking a part of the past. An unusual, very classic wine that will not see the light again until the 2020 vintage. We will spend four long years without it.
When it comes to vital trips, the important thing is not usually the destination, the key is the trip itself, the path we travel, a path that decenters us from our own self and continually moves us from surprise to learning. Jorge Monzón, from Burgos from La Aguilera, must have experienced something like this when he left his hometown and ended up after various adventures in Domaine de la Romanée-Conti, the most dreamed-of vineyard in Burgundy.
He returned to Spain and after passing through Vega Sicilia and Arzuaga closed the trip meeting again at the origin. He had learned the importance of terroir, a mystical dialogue that unites land, climate, variety and the hands of the viticulturist, fostering a unique and unrepeatable conversation in each vineyard. And what better terroir than family vineyards!
Pícaro del Águila defends the ancestral tradition of Castilian clarets, a mixture of red and white grapes united in the vineyard. It is vinified without destemming, without separating the stem from the grain, as has always been done; It is trodden in the press and the resulting must ferments in the caves of the winery. It then goes into wooden buckets and is finally bottled without clarifying or filtering.
Far from fashion, claret dresses in shades between reds and oranges. At the first hit it brings aromas of white wine, then the delicacy of peach, red fruit, balsamic red wines appear. On the palate it combines freshness and complexity and a mineral and saline finish. Undoubtedly an extraordinary wine to which the wood gives complexity and long life.
This wine wants to be an ambassador in Barcelona for accessible wine, easy to drink and fun, without detracting from its aromatic power, volume on the palate and precision in the elaboration.
Its very presentation is already a declaration of intent. The label comes from a graffiti painted in the Poblenou neighborhood (Barcelona) that demonstrates the energy of urban art. The name Más Amor is because the photo was taken on Valentine’s Day, February 14. The graffiti no longer exists, because the house was demolished days later.
It is an organic rosé from the slopes of the Ebro River, from a vineyard between 15 and 25 years old on clay soils. It’s Garnacha, everything except 10 percent. The pink color is the result of maceration for three hours and fermentation in stainless steel tanks for two weeks. It has nothing of aging, that’s why its screw cap and transparent bottle.
And inside the bottle there is also a story. In 2020 they began supporting the solidarity project of Ingrid (@leucos.byingrid), the best friend of Franck Massard’s daughter, who had leukemia and has been able to recover. Franck, a French sommelier, is one of the greats in the sector due to his international professional career. For years he has made wines in different places on the peninsula that express his respect for the land. Más Amor is not only a rosé wine and a Verdejo white, it is also a project to participate in the health of the social community and produce sustainable wines.
Enate Rosado is one of the great veterans among the great rosés of Spain. One of his merits is that for 30 years he has remained faithful to his style, achieving great success. Even now, three decades later, Enate is the only Spanish winery that has won a medal with three of its wines in the International Cabernet Competition (CIDC), where the best cabernets in the world are awarded, and one of the winners was this Enate Rosado .
Enate is many things. It is the reference winery of the DO Somontano. A symbol of contemporary architecture from the 1990s, with an avant-garde design by the architect Jesús Manzanares, when there were barely eight wineries in the Denomination of Origin. Pioneers in the pairing of wine and art, with a magnificent collection of contemporary art on display in the winery’s showroom, Enate was also the one who made Somontano wines fashionable thanks to their modern image and excellent value for money. price of the wines designed by Jesús Artajona.
Enate Rosado has accompanied me these three decades of profession. Always with its intense dark garnet color, characteristic of the Cabernet Sauvignon variety, faithful to how it has always been, without being influenced by the new fashions for pale rosé wines. More intense on the nose and on the palate than most rosés. With a red soul, intense, corpulent and meaty. With a good load of fruit, picota cherries, blueberries and raspberries, notes of strawberry caramel and fine spicy notes. Its label is an original painting by Víctor Mira. An essential rosé.
The winery was founded in 1953 and is located in Puente la Reina, at the epicenter of the Camino de Santiago. Navarra is a denomination of origin where the Garnacha grape thrives and climates as diverse as the continental, Mediterranean and Atlantic are contemplated, thanks to the proximity of the Pyrenees, the proximity of the Ebro valley and the influence of the Cantabrian Sea. It also enjoys different soils and landscapes that give a great variety of wines. The age of the vines is around 60 years in the case of the Garnachas, giving a good quality grape.
More and more people are consuming rosé wine, and also rosés are beginning to play a relevant role gastronomically speaking. Viñedo Cinco is a highly awarded rosé. I have not only chosen it for its beautiful pink color, I have selected it for its joviality and freshness, made in a stainless steel tank, it has not been aged in barrels.
Winner of a Gold Medal in the Grenaches du Monde 2022 international competition, it has been chosen as the Best Rosado de Navarra 2022, becoming the institutional rosé wine of the DO Navarra, so it is the rosé chosen for its official promotional actions. Intense crimson red color and fragrant, fruity and floral nose. The aromas of wild berries and apricot stand out, along with dairy and floral notes, fresh herbs and red caramel. It is refreshing on the palate, the red berries crunch on the palate, its acidity is lively and the finish has hints of yogurt and flowers. It is sweet as a whole.
I have always had great respect for cooperative wines, and whenever I can I try to value them. Sometimes we forget its great importance, but the Sarral Wine Cooperative is the largest producer of trepat in the world. The trepat variety, native to Conca de Barberà, represents 50% of its production.
In addition to identity, the cooperative also has great social, historical, and architectural value. Cooperativism in Sarral was born with the Agricultural Union (1907) and the Winemakers Union (1913). Shortly after, they built their modernist architecture winery (1914), the work of the architect Pere Domènech i Roura, son of Domènech and Muntaner. Both entities later merged into the Sarral Wine Cooperative (1959), which today uses the Portell brand. Its partners have 1,150 hectares of vineyards. Inside each of its bottles there is wine, but behind each one there are also many families united for more than a century to survive together the hard work in the fields.
This year they have presented several new wines. The one I liked the most is this Secrets Pàl-lid from Trepat. A Provençal-style pale rosé, in the fashion of pale rosés, but deeply local and autochthonous, 100% Trepat monovarietal.
Fall in love with its lightness and simplicity. Pale pink color with soft salmon tones. Citrus and refreshing white soul, with subtle final notes of white peach and apricot, with some tropical nuances. To always have a fresh bottle in the fridge.
