2018 Onyx Rose wine - An enthusiastic review

Wow! It's so much fun to find great wines at low prices. This 2018 Onyx Rose wine from Provence (France) is wonderful, and it's on closeout special now, as the 2019 roses are "on the boat" over here to the US.

1. "Is it past its prime?" you ask. An emphatic "no!" I had it, over the course of an hour, and it had been open for a whole day, and yet it was fresh and singing loudly.
2. Color: Pale pinkish-salmon, the typical color for Provencal roses.
3. Bouquet:  A delightful mix of summer fruits, and flowers, and lots of steel and flint. Really nice.
4. Palate: Those same fruits carried along on a great acidic frame. This is so good with food. It's a bigger and bit-fruitier wine than you expect from a French rose, so it sits in between Old World and New World stylistically.
5. Finish: A good finish, but that's not the appeal here.

This wine's made from GSM--Grenache-Syrah-Mouvedre grapes, by the famous Aix winery. I'm selling it now for just $9! Wow.

2018 Maryhill Rose of Sangiovese

What a charming rose! Yes, it's New World (lots of powerful fruit), but as I tell anyone who will listen: A grape is a fruit, and so a wine should taste like fruit!

Here we have strawberries and cranberries, riding on a lovely acid frame. Not too complex, but who cares? when the effect is so perfect?   It's nice that a 2018 rose can still sing like this. Sangiovese makes great roses (check out Barnard Griffin's Rose of Sangio. which wins every award you can name). Life is better with good rose, especially in Spring.

In order to fit my dinner into "Rose-land," when we were hitting Papa Murphy's tonight for an easy dinner (we usually cook in), I chose something new: Chicken, bacon, artichokes, onion, parmesan, on thin crust with a white garlic cream sauce, with jalepenos added at home, and wow! Perfect with this rose.

Maryhill makes a HUGE slate of wines, and I choose among those--not all are right for me. The Proprietor's Reserve wines are consistently good choices (and not too expensive), but here, in 2018, the "regular" Rose of Sangio is better than the Proprietor' Reserve Rose. But both are good.

If you don't live in the Pac NW, GET UP HERE! The world is changing, environmentally and governmentally, you need to be up here, if you have an open mind. Life is great here.

A really great French (Provencal) Rose: Jean-Luc Colombo 2018 "La Dame du Rouet" (Aix-en-Provence, Southern Rhone, France)

This was exceptional! A group of us circled our cars, in a lately-very-empty parking lot, and sat on quilts to eat take out from Rallys Pizza tonight, on a sunny sunsetting day in May. How to socialize in the Era of Corona. What good friends!

What a pleasure this wine was! Strawberries and watermelon, but the fruit was restrained. Minerals, but also restrained. What was more prominent was the acidity, yet it was pleasant, and it provided the frame on which to hang the various other enjoyments. Many American winemakers (like me) try to make Statement Wines, and the French sometimes do, but what they're really skilled at is making wines that know how to accompany food without getting in the way. This wine is a perfect example.

4 and a half stars on Vivino, with this comment: "Best Rosé I've ever tasted. Dry and fruity."

OK. Works for me.

Orin Swift 2016 "Fragile" Rose - Can't live up to its hype

It was with a sense of excitement that I opened this bottle, after several customers told me that "you can never go wrong with anything made under this label." It's about $17-$19 retail, though I found it on a great sale and was able to sell it for just $10.

It's a deeply-colored rose. I am NOT one who likes only faintly-tinged rose wines. Why penalize a wine for having pretty color? Why turn away from a bigger-bodied rose (which a deeper color suggests may be present)? My Epona rose wine looks much like this one. It's a pretty bottle and label, which present well.

Nose: Not much going on. Sad. Our noses can distinguish thousands of different sensations, whereas our tongues can manage only six. Why winemakers don't pay attention to extracting a great bouquet, is beyond me.

Palate: Huh. A little disappointing. This wine is fine--it's got fruit and good acid. Certainly not a revelation or anything like that. There is a fairly pronounced bitter orange peel note that is too strong for me. The wine's definitely drinkable, and it's fine, but not quite super-enjoyable. Give me the $10 Barnard Griffin Rose of Sangio (a repeat Double Platinum winner up here in the NW) anyday over this. Give me an Epona rose (also $10) over this.

Rose sales climbing fast! Why not try Olequa's Brilliant 2016 Foch Rose?

Thanks to Steve for turning me towards this article.

I also found this one.

Some salient points:
1. Rose wine sales are headed sharply up.
2. In France, more rose is drunk now than whites!
3. Men are drinking more and more rose.

This is great news. All colors of wine need to be enjoyed by all winelovers!

I am particularly enjoying Olequa's Rose of Marechal Foch. It has a brilliant clarity, a bright and inviting deep red color, and loads and loads of jam-packed strawberries, cherries, and cranberries, riding on a strong acid backbone. This is a wine for summer! Serve it chilled. Keep some for Thanksgiving! because this would be awesome awesome awesome with turkey. Don't worry any more about gerrymandering Pinot Noir or Merlot or Gewurz or Riesling into the Turkey Tango--just use this wine! I promise. If you want to buy this one from me, it's just $13 with more flavor in each bottle than you have ever had! Email me at kenton.erwin@gmail.com . Epona Wines (virtual wine retailer)...

(image credit to Google stock images)