A bunch of rosés

Above all, rosé is admired for its looks but over the past few years it has graduated from a come-hither pink of easy enjoyment to a drink requiring greater attention. These wines have progressed from sundowner sipping to warranting the spotlight position on the dinner table. Dry rosés now outnumber their off-dry/semi-sweet counterparts in Platter and possibly worldwide.  

How serious can a rosé be? None have yet cracked a place on the Platter five star tasting, let alone that ultimate ceiling itself, but with winemakers’ more serious intent and improvements, that’s no longer a pipe-dream. Cautiously, oak has been introduced, adding a note of structure and ageability. On the matter of age, rosé, like sauvignon blanc, used to be rushed onto the market to satisfy wine lovers’ desire to enjoy them as young and fresh as possible. Today’s drier, firmer styles benefit from time to settle and a later release; some are held back by a year or even longer.

Rosé isn’t something I drink very often but three potentially interesting (gift) bottles in the cellar offered an excellent opportunity to explore the genre further.

Inspiration for La Motte’s Vin de Joie (wine of joy) came from CEO Hein Koegelenberg’s visit to Prowein 2019 in Hamburg, where he tasted Provence rosés and was struck by their elegance. The team had been mulling the idea of producing a La Motte rosé for some time; the Provence style and the fact that the particular wine Hein admired was made close to La Motte d’Aigues, from which Franschhoek’s La Motte is believed to have been named, sealed his decision. A bottle carried home was poured for winemaker, Edmund Terblanche and the cellar team’s inspiration.

Joie is a blend of Southern French varieties grenache, mourvèdre, syrah with grapes drawn from across the winelands including Franschhoek. South Africa’s Blushing Bride fynbos inspired the wine’s glinting pale pink, as well as the sculpture on the label.

A lot of detail for a wine which entices with its understated elegance and gentle freshness.  An insinuating fragrance of herbs and soft summer berries is echoed in the expansive yet restrained flavours and their lingering, savoury retreat. At its best chilled and over the coming year.

La Motte Vin de Joie 2021 R99 ex cellar

Pink Valley is unique in South Africa as the only farm specialising in rosé with a cellar dedicated to this one wine. Located next to Taaibosch on the Helderberg, both properties are owned by father and daughter Pascal and Lorraine Oddo under their company Oddo Vins & Domaines. Their roots are in Provence, where they make rosé but have wine ventures in other countries. The possibility of making a classic rosé in the Cape brought them here in 2018 on the recommendation of a friend.

The maiden vintage of Pink Valley Rosé 2019 was released in 2020. Deceptively pale, to the point of resembling a white wine in the glass, winemaker Schalk-Willem Joubert describes the official colour as onion skin, a tinge achieve by holding the juice at 2C in stainless steel for five weeks prior to fermentation.  One sniff assures red grapes are involved, in fact Southern French varieties grenache, shiraz and cinsaut with a little Italian influence from sangiovese.  Aromatically, it has greater intensity than Joie de Vie, the spicy, melon fragrance delivered with winning charm.

Then comes a surprise: the wine has weight and viscosity to match the bright, sustained fruit, this texture achieved from five months on its fine lees, with stirring. Two years on, the wine remains fleet-footed with an abundance of freshness and flavour, enhanced by 12% alcohol. Pink Valley restaurant’s tapas and light dishes are this rosé’s perfect partners.

Pink Valley Rosé R150 ex cellar

Normandie Est 1693, one of the original French Huguenot-settled farms, is perhaps not as well-known as the above properties. Three major wines are produced from its roughly 30 ha of vines stretching from the Huguenot Road to the foothills of Groot Drakenstein mountains: Eisen & Viljoen (named for the owners, Mark and Karen Eisen and winemaker, Johan Viljoen), Anno 1693 are both Bordeaux-style blends, while karen. is a rosé with a difference.

Described on the website as ‘a sophisticated, dry, fruit-driven, aged rosé wine .. made from a single icon block of Merlot’, karen. is harvested with; ‘A very high concentration of red and black berry flavours,’ comments Johan Viljoen. Whole bunch pressing, a slow fermentation until the wine is totally dry, then 18 months’ rest in bottle is the wine’s journey before release. Johan’s rationale being to make the wine available ‘only when it’s settled and ready to drink.’

The 2016, selling when I visited Johan at Normandie Est 1693 in November 2020, has the deepest colour of the three, a bright coppery blush. It does indeed have the dark and red berry character Johan seeks, the flavours richly spread across the palate and well-sustained through the wine’s rounded dry conclusion. It’s very much like a red wine in a white wine body with a lifted, balancing acidity. The most versatile with food of the trio and quite able to take a further year’s ageing. Different and delicious. It will benefit from less chilling than the other two.

karen. R200 from the website (2018 currently available)

Pricing may raise some eyebrows, but bear in mind, these are rosés designed from the vineyard onwards, not the result of bleeding off grapes destined for red wine. According to the US website Drizly, the average unit price for rosé has grown by six percent year-on-year, indicating consumers acceptance of higher quality wines.