In 2006 I gave myself an OOPS award.
In 2006 I gave my self an OOPS award. “OOPS?” I hear you say? “What is OOPS?” you continue. You really must get out more!
It is the Order of the Pinks. “Order of the Pinks?” you say. Pink wine, I say. I’ll explain.
I am going to break this story into seven chapters, as I am told, it is best to dribble it out a little at a time to keep you blog readers coming back, and to cater to your short attention span. I am feeding you but ever so slowly. Be patient and all will be revealed, and in detail.
Each summer I set myself a summer project. These projects range from the mundane at home like repairing the dining room table chairs, re-hanging the refrigerator door, or getting the annual quotation to install air conditioning and at work such noble and frustrated efforts as learning to use EndNote both for bibliography and footnotes. Many have crossed the first of those bridges – using EndNote to manage bibliography – only to meet their Waterloo at the second – using it for footnotes. I know I did. That is another long and fascinating story for another time.
Some of my summer projects are even more demanding. One was to master the fine art of risotto, which I did, after many a wrong turn, by following the instruction of Marcella Hazan and no other, she who is widely and rightly regarded as the most authoritative master of Italian cuisine. I cite the redoubtable Jeffrey Steingarten (The man who ate everything (New York: Knopf, 1997), 242ff., do yourself a favour and read this book right away) as my authority on this attribution.
That story – fascinating though it is – must wait since our subject today, Friends, is OOPS. Remember?
A summer project a few years ago, say about 2002, was to renew acquaintance with rosé wine. I cannot now recall why I was thus motivated. It may be a continuation of my very long search for light red wine that I like, is readily available, and affordable. While I have loved pinot noir for years, only the very best will do and they sting the wallet. The pinot noirs that offer less financial pain were often not worth the bother, so I stepped over the line. (Yes, I know rosé is all the rage today, Gentle Reader, but it is in part because of pioneers like this humble scribe all those years ago. Let gratitude be your response.) I tried a few rosés, and I have continued. Needless to say, I have been systematic; there is a database.
Once I tried rosé, overcoming those dated prejudices that still inhibit sensible people from realizing the obvious – that rosé hits the spot in the antipodean climate for ten months a year. Say rosé to a great many members of the educated classes and they reveal themselves to have once drunk Mateus Rosé or the Australian equivalent, Kaiser Stuhl Rosé,
and have been since content to leave it at that, a youthful indiscretion best forgotten. Reader if this description fits you, then if you dare, read on.
The news is that there is, and always has been, more to rosé than those relics. I discovered in no time flat that since no rules prescribe what a rosé must be, that rosés are a world of their own. When I say rules I refer both to the spoken and unspoken rules, e.g., a riesling must, well these days anyway, be made of riesling grapes (in fact, 80% is the legal minimum, but we won’t worry about that right now). That is a spoken rule. An equally powerful rule is the unspoken rule concerning chardonnay. In this case the grapes must be chardonnay but also the flavor is defined round and fat and – for years, oaked. Ditto for red wine. A shiraz must be made from the legal minimum of shiraz grapes and have that palate flooding feel and peppery taste. A cabernet sauvignon must, by contrast, be clean and even – in the best ones – have a steely finish that runs straight down the palate. I could, as you can see, go on. Patient and perceptive readers now have their reward. The point is that no rules of any kind seem to constrain rosé. Not even color as we shall see, if we are patient.
To be continued.