The customer, in her mid-thirties, pulls a strand of hair back from her face and fastens it into her messy bun. She’s searching for a final criterion before she turns the floor to me, the debutante caviste, for my assessment. I wait, smiling as she continues to scan the bottles and search for words.

“Probably a red. Is it possible to get a light red? I’m not too keen on whites.”

Aha! The clincher! She wants something light, but she’s eliminating summertime whites from the mix.

Thankfully, we have just the thing.

“What about a nice French rosé?” I suggest, motioning to a wooden display of pink bottles.

The woman’s instinctual reaction causes her nose to scrunch and her lips to purse in immediate disapproval. Not meaning to be rude, however, she recovers her tact, giggling a bit sheepishly as she says, “Oh, I couldn’t buy a rosé…I don’t drink sweet wines.”

I can’t tell you how often I hear this response at the wine shop. People assume rosé will be sweet and many have come to associate anything pink with blush, or White Zinfandel – a sometimes sickeningly sugary American wine.

But French rosés aren’t sweet at all, and neither are the origins of White Zinfandel.

In the 1970’s, Napa Valley’s Sutter Home Winery used the method called saignée (from the French verb “to bleed”) to extract some of the pink juice from the must (that includes the stems, seeds, and skins of the grapes) at early stages of fermentation. This bleeding-off produced a darker, more tannic red Zinfandel because the remaining juice in the vat came into contact with a more highly concentrated volume of must. But winemakers are wary of wasting any hard-won juice, so those at Sutter Home fermented the extracted juice separately, creating a dry, almost white wine. They called it “White Zinfandel,” and at this point it was created in exactly the same way Old World rosés are still made.

Then, in 1975, a fermenting vat of Sutter Home’s White Zinfandel got “stuck.” When the yeast dies out before all of the juice’s sugar is consumed (and transformed into alcohol), it is called “stuck fermentation,” and is usually considered a problem. But when the winemaker tasted this particular batch, he liked the flavor of the sweet pink wine and decided to sell it.

Americans love sweet. The new White Zinfandel quickly became more popular than Sutter Home’s red Zinfandel, eventually outselling the dry wine 6:1 by volume. A lucky predicament for Sutter Home, and other blush producers, since production costs were substantially lower and fruit quality not as important in making White Zin. Nowadays, blush producers don’t even have to count on stuck fermentation, deliberately adding sugar to their pink vats. White Zinfandel’s popularity peaked in the late 1970’s then nearly died out when the “fine wine boom” of the 80’s began in the United States. Since then, dry wines like Chardonnay have been associated with sophisticated imbibing whereas blush has been relegated to entry level wine at best. My theory is this: although White Zinfandel’s widespread popularity was brief, it managed to leave such an impression on Americans’ conceptions of pink-colored wine that the majority of wine drinkers now steer clear of rosés altogether. People clump all rosés in the same category as blush, considering them outdated and unsophisticated as well as too sweet.

It’s a challenge to convince consumers otherwise, but after tasting some very good bottles, I’m giving it my best shot.

“Barring exceptional cases, French rosés are dry,” I say to my customer, whose eyebrow rises slightly at my words. “There’s no residual sugar.”

She doesn’t look convinced.

I take a bottle of Chateau de Roquefort’s Corail Rosé from the shelf. “This producer, Raymond de Villeneuve has been called ‘one of the finest winemakers in Provence’ by leading wine writer Michel Bettane,” I say. On the verge of petting the bottle, I explain that its contents are full of summertime red fruits like strawberries and raspberries, with a mineral palate and a crisp finish. It would be perfect with appetizers on the front porch, anything with garlic and olive oil, all kinds of seafood and oh, the thought of it with grilled meats makes my mouth water.

“I’ll try it,” the woman says. A statement made of a combination of curiosity and uncertainty, I suppose.

As we approach the counter, I feel confident she’ll be happily surprised by her $16.99 purchase. But just to reassure her I say, “It goes through the same fermentation process as red wine, it just spends less time in contact with the skins, which are the ticket to color and structure. So, don’t think of it as rosé, think of it as a very light red.

“That’s what I came in here for after all, isn’t it?” she responds.

Voilà! And cheers to “rosé colored glasses!”

Here are some of my recommendations for your backyard or front porch French rosé afternoons:

Gerard Bertrand Gris-Blanc: A very light, almost clear rosé from biodynamic vineyards in Languedoc-Roussillon. More peachy than strawberry-esque, with a crisp, clean finish. 100% Grenache gris ($12-$15)

Chateau de Roquefort Corail Rosé: A cool blend of 35% Grenache, 20% Syrah, 25% Cinsault, 10% Carignan, 5% Vermentino and 5% Clairette, this interesting rosé is both fruit forward and minerally, with apple and citrus on the nose but enough wet-stone quality to balance the fruit on the palate. Biodynamically farmed in Provence ($16-$18)

Elicio Rosé: Bright pink with a big fruity nose and palate. Lots of currant. The fruitiness could be mistaken for sweetness, but there’s no residual sugar here. 80% Grenache, 20% Cinsault ($9-$11)

Emily L. Turner is an American writer and budding photographer who divides her time between her old Kentucky home and Burgundy, France. She began her life in France as an exchange student in Dijon, then taught English to primary students for a year in Beaune, and is now pursuing her passion for wine. In addition to freelancing for several print magazines, she writes about her experiences on her blog, EmilyintheGlass and loves to hear from her readers!

by Emily L. Turner
Emily's blog: http://emilyintheglass.wordpress.com/

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