Bonjour, Mon Rosé!

Rosé is a wine of celebration!

Provençal Rosé with fresh spring salad

After a long dreary winter, it is always a joy to welcome sunshine and warmth with a bottle of Rosé. I especially love a dry Provençal or Provence-style Rosé, slightly chilled and shared with friends on the patio, or on the beach. Being light and fruity in palate, Rosés go well with most summer fare - cantalope slices wrapped with prosciutto, spring mix salad with a light mustard vinaigrette, and cheeses. Or if you want to be totally Provençal, pair it with your favorite vegetables and shellfish dipped in rich garlicky aioli.

Rosé is a French term for pink wine, that is well beloved in the States. In Italy, it is called Rosato; and in Spain, it is called Rosado. In a London bistro, I would order a bottle of Blush.

Contrary to some belief, Rosé is not made by blending white and red wines, except in the case of a pink Champagne. But a still pink wine is made using black grapes (or grapes that typically produce red wine) with a much shorter skin contact than one would for making red wine. That way, it significantly reduces the extraction of anthocyanins, or color pigments from the skin, rendering it pink.

To be technical, there are different ways to make Rosés, and they are rather nuanced.

Provence-Style Rosé from Brady Cellars

• Short Maceration - This is the way to make Rosés with the sole goal of making Rosés, instead of a by-product. In this case, the winemaker crushes the black grapes and macerates them for a period of time. When the desired level of color and flavor is achieved, the juice is drained off from the crushed grapes and continues to ferment.

• Vin d'une Nuit - This is French for "wine of a night." A simple short maceration approach, it means the juice is drained from the crushed grapes after a night. 

• Saignée - Derived from the French word that means "bled," this is method is used when the winemaker is trying to kill two birds with one stone. After a short maceration period, the pink juice will be drained out, leaving the remaining juice to continue macerating with a higher ratio of skin contact. The pink juice is then made into a Rosé. The remaining juice will have a deeper color and flavor by the time it is made into a still red wine. This is well-practiced in the States as the Rosé will be released early to bring cash flow to the winery while the remaining red wine continues to mature and age.

• Doble Pasta - This yummy-sounding approach comes from Spain although it is hardly intuitive. This is similar to Saignée in that a red wine and a pink wine will be produced. The difference is that two vats are used in this case. One vat is used to make a pink wine, and the skins will be transferred to the vat that is used to make the red.

My Verdict: There are different types of pink wine in the market. Pick something and try it. I tend to like a dry Grenache-based Rosé, hence my preference for a Provençal or Provence-style Rosé. And if your favorite small winery for red wine makes a nice Rosé, know that you are helping it by buying a bottle of the pink as well. Santé!

Wine Clubs and Member Lists

If you frequent wine country or enjoy winery tours, it is likely that you have been seduced into a wine club membership. The more you drink, the harder it is to resist the temptation.

Truth be told, there are many perks to joining a wine club. There is usually no upfront fee for joining, and you can often terminate membership at any time. You just pay for the wine purchased with membership discount, which is often in the area of 10-20%. The catch is that there is usually a commitment of a certain number of bottles per year and sometimes in multiple releases. Each wine club may vary in the flexibility to mix and match the wines for each allocation, so that is something to which you want to pay attention.

Crates of wine in storage

The other big draw of a wine club is the limited releases that are offered exclusively to club members. This may happen when the winemakers are experimenting with a new varietal, blend, or way of making wine in small production. In other cases, the winery may keep a library of cellar-worthy wines to be released only to its members in later years so as to showcase the aging potential. Finally, there are special events and release parties, when winemakers unveil new releases with amazing food pairings.

If you don't live close to a wine region, check out your local wine shop to see if it offers a wine club. Our local wine shop, West Seattle Wine Cellars, offers six different monthly clubs, ranging from  easy-drinking to region-specific, like Champagne, Washington, and Oregon. The collective buying power from wine clubs allows the shops to have access to certain wines that would otherwise be hard to come by. Additionally, there is a club member's discount for wine purchases.

Then there are member lists. These are often offered by high-end or boutique wineries to give members first dibs on their wines at membership price before they are released to the secondary market. There is no allocation commitment, but members stay on the list as long as they make purchases. A lapse in purchases within a predefined amount of time, typically two consecutive years, may cause you to be dropped from the list. These wineries are usually not open to the public although some offer tours to members by appointment.

Now the danger of wine club and member list memberships is that you can end up with more wine than you need. At which point, it is time to say goodbye to some of them. In the past decade, I have gone through close to a dozen club and list memberships. Today, I am down to two wine club memberships and one member list. Here's the scoop on what I have.

Brady Cellars vertical tasting

Brady Cellars Wine Club
Kim Brady is a friend and fellow West Seattleite, who started his first commercial release in 2010. I'm all for supporting friends and small wineries, and Brady makes it easy by producing excellent wine at an affordable price point. His club commitment is a minimum of 6 bottles a year. Members get 10% off retail price, and the release parties are a blast, not to mention often a stone's throw away from our house. Tyler Palagi of Radiator Whiskey is always whipping up delicious food pairings with Brady's wines.

West Seattle Wine Cellars Specialty Club

I have been a member of the Specialty Club offered by the West Seattle Wine Cellars for several years. It features a red and a white from literally anywhere in the world at a cap of $90 plus tax. But don't worry, Tom DiStefano, who carefully selects each bottle, has never let us down. You may get some interesting selections from Slovenia and South Africa as well as the classics from Barolo, Burgundy, and Rhone. I always recommend this club to anyone who is looking to expand his or her palate.

Quilceda Creek Release Party

Quilceda Creek Private Member List
Last but not least, the exclusive Quilceda Creek Private Member List. Quilceda Creek produces world-class Washington Cabernet Sauvignon and has a few 100-pointers from Robert Parker's Wine Advocate to its name. There is a wait to get onto the member list. It took me less than a year. Once on the list, you get to purchase three of the four wines initially: the Columbia Valley Red (or CVR, which is an excellent deal!), the Galitzine Vineyard, and the Pelanget Vineyard. After another year or so, I was finally invited to the release party and got to purchase the flagship wine. It is a game of patience, but it is definitely worth the while if you are very particular about your wine. All the wines are divine (particularly the flagship), and the membership price is unbeatable.

My Verdict: Depending on your taste and budget, there is likely a wine club or member list that works for you. Unless you have generous cellar space and/or bank accounts, you may need to break up with some club and list memberships that no longer work for you. You can always share wine club or list memberships with friends. It needs some coordination, but it can also be a win-win proposition.

Raiding the Cellar - Thanksgiving 2016

Thanksgiving can't come soon enough!

Besides preparing my favorite dishes, I absolutely love wine pairing. This year, however, I will not be shopping for Thanksgiving wines. Thanks to numerous winery visits, too many wine club memberships, and an excessive wine buying habit, my wine cellar is overflowing. So my challenge is to pick a few bottles from my collection for the big meal:

Thanksgiving wine pairings - Cava, Riesling, Grenache, Burgundy

NV Castell d'Or Cava Flama d'Or Imperial Brut 
(Retail: $10)

OK, this is an easy one. You can't go wrong with sparkling wines. They go with everything; as an aperitif with cheese and crackers, a complement to the roast bird itself, or even a digestif with pumpkin pie. In addition, you could concoct all kinds of cocktails - a splash of orange juice, a splash of Campari, and/or a splash of St Germaine. It is like a party in a flute.

I love to indulge in a good grower's champagne or one from a high quality champagne house, like Veuve Clicquot and Möet et Chandon. I love the dry taste of dough and fruit, the weightlessness brought on by a million bubbles.

However, there are many budget-friendly options: like a Crémant or a Cava. Both are sparkling wines made the same way a Champagne is made, but outside of Champagne: in France and Spain respectively. Known as method champenoise, these sparkling wines go through a secondary fermentation in the bottle. This is accomplished by adding a mixture of sugar and yeast, called the liqueur de tirage, to the still wine. This secondary fermentation creates the bubbles in the sparkling wine as carbon dioxide is released.

While I am out of Champagne right now, I do have a couple bottles of NV Castell d'Or Cava Flama d'Or Imperial Brut. The sparkling wine is made of a blend of Spanish grape varietals - Xarel·lo, Macaque, and Parellada. It is probably my favorite budget-friendly Cava, and it will be a great way to start the celebration.

2013 Brady Cellars Grenache
(Retail: $37)

If you prefer a red for Thanksgiving, Grenache is an excellent choice. It is medium-bodied, fruity, and vibrant; a great accompaniment to turkey, ham, and all kinds of Thanksgiving sides.

Old world Grenache-based wines, like Chateauneuf du Pape and Priorat, have a smokey and earthy profile that make great pairings for dishes that are spiced with sage, rosemary, and thyme. New world Grenache is even more fruit-forward and can be very aromatic and easy to drink.

My pick for the meal is the first vintage of Grenache by Brady Cellars.  A relatively young winery that has been focusing mostly on Bordeaux grapes, Brady took a stab at making Grenache in 2013 both as a rosé and a red. Both were wildly popular. The red won him a gold medal at the 2016 San Francisco Chronicle Wine Competition. Very shortly, they were all sold out. I'm lucky to have a bottle of the 2013 Grenache left. Unfortunately, he didn't make a 2014 vintage. But his 2015 vintage Grenache is really promising based on last month's barrel tasting.

The 2013 Grenache is extremely aromatic, floral, and delivers delightfully on the palate. The blend of fruit and spice is elegant. It is going to be perfect with the meal.

2008 Joseph Drouhin Nuits St. Georges 1er Cru Les Damodes 
(Retail: ~$80)

The other red that is often selected for Thanksgiving is Pinot Noir. It is often the no-brainer pairing. Like Grenache, Pinot Noir is often medium-bodied, very aromatic and vibrant with fruit, spice, and earth. A good Pinot Noir also offers a bright acidity that increases its aging potential.

Famous Pinot Noir comes from Burgundy, where the wines are prized for their elegant and complex expression of the terroir. This is particularly important because Pinot Noir is a finicky varietal. It thrives where there is the perfect combination of climate, soil, and topography. Even within Burgundy, you can absolutely taste the subtle differences in the wines from the different subregions.

There are also good Pinot Noirs from the new world, such as New Zealand and the United States. In fact, Pinot Noir from the Willamette Valley in Oregon is often regarded as a nod to Burgundy in terms of acidity and flavor profile.

The pick for the meal is the 2008 Nuits St. Georges Premier Cru from Joseph Drouhin. The Les Damodes vineyard is located near Vosnes-Romanee with an east exposure. With a mix of clay and limestone in the soil, this is a promising wine of great finesse, befitting the special occasion.

2010 Selbach-Oster Zeltinger Sonnenuhr Riesling 'Rotlay' 
(Retail: $55)

Riesling is the Thanksgiving meal's best friend. The high acidity and minerality of a dry Riesling pairs well with turkey and refreshes the palate as it cuts through the rich gravy. A sweeter Riesling is perfect with pumpkin pie topped with a dollop of vanilla whipped cream.

Known as the noble grape from Germany, the best Rieslings come from the Rhein and Mosel regions.  As one might expect, the Germans have a very organized way of classifying Riesling to help consumers, but sometimes confuse them instead. One of the classifications is based on the increasing ripeness of grapes during harvest; from Kabinett (or cabinet) to Spätlese, Auslese, and all the way to Eiswein (or ice wine). The riper the grapes during harvest, the more sugar will be in the juice.

Unlike many cheap sweet wines, a good German Riesling is complex, with delicious minerality and bright acidity. You can also find wonderful Rieslings in Austria and in the United States, particularly Washington state.

This year, I'm picking the Rotlay from Selbach-Oster for dessert. A wonderful producer, Selbach-Oster defies the traditional practice by combining grapes of varying ripeness levels from the Rotlay parcel into a single wine. As a result, this Riesling cannot be classified although it is closest to an Auslese. A few notches below the Eiswein in terms of sweetness, the Rotlay contains just enough sugar to please the palate and make for a delightful finale.

My Verdict: These are the picks from my cellar. I have updated the notes after opening all of them up. What are your picks? Ultimately, the best wines are the ones you enjoy with people you love. Have a wonderful Thanksgiving!