Dumping (On) Rosé
Every now and then I make a belittling crack about rosé. When I do that, someone defends the stuff, either because they are personally insulted or because they believe my disdain for pink wine brands me as a pretentious rube. They’re inevitably confident that one day I will give rosé an honest chance and come around to appreciating its simple charm. In response, I say something moderate and respectful: drink whatever you want…I just haven’t found the right one…I didn’t mean to imply that because you like rosé you’re stupid…really, rosé is just fine…please don’t cry, I didn’t mean it.
That kind of thing.
My response is a lie. I do mean it. Rosé isn’t just fine. Close your eyes and it’s indistinguishable from white wine and, in most cases, not even particularly good white wine. It’s so indistinct that I’ve actually forgotten what some tastes like while it’s still in my mouth. There’s damnation in wine critics’ joyful reference to rosé as a “quaffing” wine, and that damnation rests in the definition of “quaff”:
“to drink a beverage, especially an intoxicating one, copiously
and with hearty enjoyment.”
If the best thing you can say about a drink is that it’s great for chugging in order to get drunk, that’s as applicable to Boone’s Farm Strawberry Hill, Mike’s Hard Lemonade and tequila as it is rosé. But there’s no one out there defending the charm of any of those.
My reputation for disdaining rosé predates this blog, and for as long as I can remember I’ve been ambushed by True Believers wielding glasses of pink wine. “I know you say you don’t like rosé,” they laugh. “But you’re going to love this.” Except that I don’t, and over the years I’ve dumped 10 gallons of various rosés into patio landscaping to avoid having to drink it. When wine store proprietors I know see me coming, they open the fresh vintage and entice me with words that make it sound like sunshine and wildflowers are pouring out of the bottle. “This is really wonderful,” they say. “It’ll bring you around.” But it isn’t, and it doesn’t, and I find myself looking for a bush I can dump it into.
I don’t like rosé. After years of trying, I’m convinced that I’m never going to like rosé. But it’s more than that. I think rosé is a scam, a gauzy marketing pitch and pretty color being used to disguise the large-scale monetization of inferior grapes. When I meet a woman who likes rosé, I conclude that she is a romantic fool hoping a bottle of wine can transport her beyond the constrictive bounds of her suffocating suburban life. When I meet a man who likes rosé, I think he’s just pretending to in an attempt to to get the woman who likes rosé into the sack. And if he succeeds, I’m certain their coupling will be bland and unsatisfying, neither one thing nor the other, like the wine that made it possible.
When rosé comes up, I’m polite. I make jokes that appear to be completely reflexive, and when people complain I say placating things. But inside I’m thinking what I have always thought but have never had the courage to say out loud. Rosé sucks. There is so much good wine in the world, unless you’re actually idling away an afternoon in a Provençal cafe, why would you waste even a moment on it?
April 28th, 2011 at 9:12 AM
You mean you don’t idle your afternoons away in Provençal cafes?
PS – Hard to miss that you filed this one under Pointless Rueness and not Mr.Grumpy.
April 28th, 2011 at 9:29 AM
Now I know not to send you a link to my annual rose post. Which will run on May 26, so you’ll know to avoid the blog that day.
April 28th, 2011 at 11:09 AM
I’m curious: have you ever been subjected to a blind tasting (in black glasses) that includes white and rose wines served at the same temperature?
The idea would be for you to list the wines in order of preference.
Much of what we say that we abhor often can be traced to that part of the brain that develops a connection between an earlier experience and what our eyes and expectations convey regarding a new experience as it relates to the earlier one.
In other words, we really don’t what we like or dislike unless we test our senses without the influence of our expectations.
April 28th, 2011 at 11:10 AM
Let me recast the last sentence correctly: In other words, we really don’t KNOW what we like or dislike unless we test our senses without the influence of our expectations.
April 28th, 2011 at 1:20 PM
I have done a couple of small blind tastings with rose and white wine — blind meaning I couldn’t see the wines. And I had a hard time telling most of them apart. Now there are a lot of variables in that, first among them being that I’m not a particularly good taster. Also, it depends a lot on what wines are chosen. I could pick a rose out of a lineup of oaky Chardonnay, for example.
And its not that I abhor rose. It’s that I find it uninteresting. And uninteresting wine sucks.
April 28th, 2011 at 3:20 PM
Are you being consistent?
“…I had a hard time telling most of them apart.”
“…its (sic) not that I abhor rose. It’s that I find it uninteresting. And uninteresting wine sucks.”
Did you pair the rose with white wine that sucks? Does white wine suck, too?
Incidentally, all blind tastings depend on what wines are chosen, which is exactly the point. If roses are chosen that you either like or can’t tell apart from white wines, then your condemnation of rose as uninteresting wine that sucks is off point.
Forgive me for playing Devil’s Advocate, but your vociferousness points to more going on than just what meets your palate…
Anyway, in my old age I’ve finally learned that making definitive statements about matters of taste will get you in the end.
April 28th, 2011 at 4:47 PM
First of all, to get the semantic part of the argument out of the way, there is nothing contradictory about saying that I don’t abhor (regard with extreme repugnance or aversion; detest utterly; loathe; abominate) rosé and that I find it uninteresting because I can’t tell rosé from other varieties of wine. My disinterest is a consequence of rosés being, generally, undistinguished and undistinguishable, but for their pretty color.
And, second, you’re right about definitive statements. But I’ve made a policy decision that I’m going to be more definitive in all aspects of my life, but especially on this blog. I’ve been mushing around in the gray areas for too long, and I’ve got an audience of about four people to show for it. Not that those four people aren’t fabulous. Every one is smart and funny and knows way more about wine than I do. But this blog exists for a purpose, and that purpose isn’t proving that I can carefully balance all competing points of view and reach a measured and ultimately boring conclusion. So from now on, among other things, rosé sucks.
April 28th, 2011 at 5:15 PM
Bravo!
April 28th, 2011 at 6:23 PM
I’ll see your four readers and raise you my four…
As for (alliteration?) your diatribe, me thinks thous dost (dust?) protest too fucking much.
Don’t sweat it: I’m a pest of the first order, but do hope I am one of your smart readers.
Finally, I admire your sarcasm, but not your definitive statements. And shall I also say that white wine sucks, at least the ones that you like do…
April 28th, 2011 at 7:24 PM
I didn’t taste down the rosé line with you at the Kacher tasting but, really? Not one of those 15 beauties struck a resonant note? And the strawberry, watermelon and pepper tasted like white wine? No, you don’t have to like it, but as a “wine person” I would guess you would still be able to recognize the defining characteristics of a genre and be able to differentiate a well made one from a dud.(and I think you do- you’re just trolling for hits)
And I’m definitely not your smart reader- I’m the other one.
April 28th, 2011 at 7:44 PM
Some people have a soundtrack to their lives. Since I spend most of 300 odd days a year surrounded by bottles of wine it is not surprising that I have kind of an ampelograpic overlay to mine. Sitting on my front porch in late May, after work, just to see who’ll walk by- light Rhone or Bourgogne rouge. Cold winter night, good book- LBV Porto. You get the idea. You also know Iowa City in July and August. I still sit out on my front porch a lot but it’s hot. And humid. Small talk with the neighbors and passerby. I don’t want the icepick acidity that let’s Albarino kick grilled sardines. I want rosé. Fresh, fun quaffable rosé for my frequent “rosé moments.” And one of my requirements is that I can tell it’s pink with my eyes closed.
Maybe us rosé lovers should mount a DOS attack on Louisville Juice. Pinkileaks?
April 28th, 2011 at 8:11 PM
Wally, resorting to reason will get you nowhere. Da man ain’t gonna budge, especially since he has said just about as much.
Look at this way: what he misses is what we enjoy.
April 28th, 2011 at 8:52 PM
This conversation falls under the paradigm: “They believe my disdain for pink wine brands me as a pretentious rube. They’re inevitably confident that one day I will give rosé an honest chance and come around to appreciating its simple charm.”
It has to be a matter of trolling for hits or making a statement or just not thinking clearly. It couldn’t possibly be that I just don’t like rosé and find it, as explained, neither one thing nor another. That there are two or three decent rosés in the world doesn’t necessarily mean that rosé as a whole doesn’t suck. There are no doubt a couple of nice places in Haiti, but you’d be a fool to vacation there in the hopes that you would find them. Haiti still sucks.
The amount of joy a rosé brings me is significantly less than the amount of work it takes to find one that’s more than socially elevated White Zin. As you are permitted to enjoy rosé, I’m permitted to not enjoy it. It is uninteresting to me.
April 28th, 2011 at 10:13 PM
I’m thinking, by the way, about doing this every Spring. You know: host an I Hate Rosé festival to offset all the paeans to rosé that everyone else writes. Like Samantha.
I think I’ll make it a week-long event.
Or maybe I’ll start this year. You never know.
April 29th, 2011 at 12:02 AM
OK Tom, I get it: so far as you are concerned, rosé sucks. End of story.
You are absolutely no more wrong than I am when I say that rosé is fun and enjoyable. (And I am quoting my wife on that – she has the final say on these things when it comes to what I need to produce for her to continue to tolerate my craptastic inability to bring home the bacon. If I can’t make bank, at least I can make some rosé and keep her happy.)
So it’s a good thing I made a lot of rosé in 2006, and that it is still drinking GREAT, because Girl and the Fig here in Sonoma bought ever single bottle I made in the next three vintages. I don’t get a lot of points on the home front when I have to buy my own rosé off someone’s wine list to keep the girlfriend {ahem} satisfied.
So lucky for you that you’re way out there in KY where I sell NO wine, and you will never have to be subjected to the sucky rosé I make.
April 29th, 2011 at 2:32 AM
Oh and here I was going to be “packin” Rose, snuggled tightly between my ample breasts, to share with you when we see each other in a couple weeks. Now I’m hurt….
April 29th, 2011 at 7:14 AM
This is totally going according to script. I hope you’re enjoying this little glimpse into the life of a rosé hater. This is the part where:
“I say something moderate and respectful: drink whatever you want…I just haven’t found the right one…I didn’t mean to imply that because you like rosé you’re stupid…really, rosé is just fine…please don’t cry, I didn’t mean it.”
So: John, I’m sure your rosé is wonderful, and don’t you just love The Girl and the Fig? When I’m in Sonoma I like to stay across the street at the El Dorado…
And: Samantha, I’m sure your breasts are lovely…
But that’s the old Tom. I’m the new, Donald-Trumpized Tom, and I’m doubling down: not only does rosé suck, but it also causes skin rashes.
There. That ought to get me some readers.
April 29th, 2011 at 8:31 AM
John K. – small world. I worked for Brice back in ’82. Do you have an Iowa distributor?
April 29th, 2011 at 10:14 AM
Tom,
Yeah…not so much but it’s the only “arsenals” I got.
April 29th, 2011 at 11:13 AM
OK, I’m convinced. Now I know why you live in Kentucky. You lucky dog, you; you’ve found the one place there that doesn’t suck?
And stop riting scrips for us. We is mainly riters, you no. We can rite our owne scrips.
John, in June, when I’m in Sonoma (which doesn’t suck much), I will drink only your rose wines and send reports back to Tom.
April 29th, 2011 at 11:44 AM
There’s an old saying: 90% of country music is crap, but then 90% of anything is crap. Kentucky’s like that. So are most places. Maybe not Sonoma, but I’m guessing there’s a lot of crap there, too.
April 29th, 2011 at 12:00 PM
“…but then 90% of anything is crap…”
…and so it goes with wine categories white, red, rose, sparkling, fortified.
Have we worn you down yet? If not, I can go on
April 30th, 2011 at 4:01 PM
Hi Wally – working for Brice was a pleasure/pain proposition, no? I do not have representation in Iowa.
No Tom – my rosé is not wonderful. It’s just rosé. Some people like it, some don’t. I feel the same either way. I like the El Dorado – what a nice little hotel. I will go to Fig just for the grileld cheese sandwiches.
TP – look forward to seeing you next month! Probably won’t have the current rosé bottles, but I will bring a barrel sample to dinner.