We are now deep into rosé season, and by season, I mean the rest of our lives. We have also acquired a new summer rite. Each year, a number of daring publications venture the rather interesting question, “Have we hit peak rosé?” only to provide the thrilling answer, which I will summarize for you here: No.
If you are youngish and urbanish and drinking tonight, it’s very possible you’re drinking rosé. This is more likely if you are a woman, according to the wine industry, which claims that women are driving rosé sales, though men drink rosé too — a phenomenon that has been labeled “brosé.” Bros who brosé signify their courage to push the boundaries of masculinity by wearing colorful socks, which is practically like wearing jewelry, and through their willingness to be photographed holding a glass of something pink up to their stubbled faces. Frosé is also a thing. It’s a slushie made out of rosé, sometimes festooned with strawberries or extra booze, like Aperol or elderflower liqueur, and if you think that wine is improved when rendered palatable to a small child, you might be a fan.
Rosé is not a varietal. It is made from lightly extracted red grapes, including — but not limited to — Grenache, Syrah, Cinsault, and Pinot Noir. However, it is classified in sales simply as rosé because despite the huge diversity of what this means — there are sparkling rosés and Pét-Nat rosés, and there are dry ones and less dry ones — it’s pink and you generally know exactly what you’re getting. This presents an issue: Rosé is only good when it’s kind of surprising, but most rosé is the exact opposite of surprising, and that’s exactly why it is popular. It’s light, it’s uncomplicated — you sip, you swallow, then you drink some more.
Whether you’re buying haute rosé or supermarket rosé, what you must never forget is to be drinking it all the time, and thus never not living the rosé lifestyle: Go on a rosé cruise, take in a rosé sunset, have a rosé night. Tie your rose gold hair back with a rosé-colored silk scarf so it doesn’t get in your rosé while you write a text on your rose gold iPhone that says, “rosé o’clock, bitches.” You can also sip it all day — why else would the hashtag #roséallday exist? “At a low 11.3 percent alcohol, you could easily drink this wine all day long,” a 2016 Vine Pair article confirms. The founder of Wine Savvy, Sayle Milne, recently told Refinery29: "You should be drinking rosé when you wake up. You should have it at lunch, you should have it at dinner. You should have it with a straw."
Rosé is alcohol, and if you drink it all day, you will eventually black out and wake up under a porch in Fair Harbor, and you will be covered in ticks.
I feel a little bad yelling at rosé. It never meant to hurt anyone. It’s been around for a long time. The Greeks and the Romans made rosé. Monks made rosé. And, like all wine, rosé comes in delightful forms, less delightful forms, and fairly disgusting forms, and it does so at every price point. The annoying thing about rosé is that it isn’t just a wine, like California Chardonnay or cheap Bordeaux — it’s “a state of mind” or “a lifestyle” or “a way of life.”
But just because rosé has a lot of bullshit surrounding it doesn’t mean there aren’t great rosés. Trust me, I know. I wish I had a good bottle of Chablis for every time someone told me that I would like rosé if I only got rosé. I am not saying that no rosé is good — just that maybe 80 or 90 percent of them aren’t, and while no one can deny that rosé rhymes with #allday and #yesway and s’il vous plait, for me, the truly telling coincidence is that it rhymes with okay.
Rosé used to just be some swill your dad bought when, newly divorced and preparing to host his first date, he helplessly thought, “Ladies like, uhh... wine?” Then the ’80s became the ’90s, the ’90s turned into the ’00s, and then the ’00s became a big horrible blur known as “post-9/11,” so people were like, “What can we resurrect from the past? How can we comfort ourselves with nostalgia while still honoring our newfound cosmopolitanism?” Rosé was there for us.
[ed. See also: Starbucks is Now Selling Sushi Burritos.]
If you are youngish and urbanish and drinking tonight, it’s very possible you’re drinking rosé. This is more likely if you are a woman, according to the wine industry, which claims that women are driving rosé sales, though men drink rosé too — a phenomenon that has been labeled “brosé.” Bros who brosé signify their courage to push the boundaries of masculinity by wearing colorful socks, which is practically like wearing jewelry, and through their willingness to be photographed holding a glass of something pink up to their stubbled faces. Frosé is also a thing. It’s a slushie made out of rosé, sometimes festooned with strawberries or extra booze, like Aperol or elderflower liqueur, and if you think that wine is improved when rendered palatable to a small child, you might be a fan.
Rosé is not a varietal. It is made from lightly extracted red grapes, including — but not limited to — Grenache, Syrah, Cinsault, and Pinot Noir. However, it is classified in sales simply as rosé because despite the huge diversity of what this means — there are sparkling rosés and Pét-Nat rosés, and there are dry ones and less dry ones — it’s pink and you generally know exactly what you’re getting. This presents an issue: Rosé is only good when it’s kind of surprising, but most rosé is the exact opposite of surprising, and that’s exactly why it is popular. It’s light, it’s uncomplicated — you sip, you swallow, then you drink some more.
Whether you’re buying haute rosé or supermarket rosé, what you must never forget is to be drinking it all the time, and thus never not living the rosé lifestyle: Go on a rosé cruise, take in a rosé sunset, have a rosé night. Tie your rose gold hair back with a rosé-colored silk scarf so it doesn’t get in your rosé while you write a text on your rose gold iPhone that says, “rosé o’clock, bitches.” You can also sip it all day — why else would the hashtag #roséallday exist? “At a low 11.3 percent alcohol, you could easily drink this wine all day long,” a 2016 Vine Pair article confirms. The founder of Wine Savvy, Sayle Milne, recently told Refinery29: "You should be drinking rosé when you wake up. You should have it at lunch, you should have it at dinner. You should have it with a straw."Rosé is alcohol, and if you drink it all day, you will eventually black out and wake up under a porch in Fair Harbor, and you will be covered in ticks.
I feel a little bad yelling at rosé. It never meant to hurt anyone. It’s been around for a long time. The Greeks and the Romans made rosé. Monks made rosé. And, like all wine, rosé comes in delightful forms, less delightful forms, and fairly disgusting forms, and it does so at every price point. The annoying thing about rosé is that it isn’t just a wine, like California Chardonnay or cheap Bordeaux — it’s “a state of mind” or “a lifestyle” or “a way of life.”
But just because rosé has a lot of bullshit surrounding it doesn’t mean there aren’t great rosés. Trust me, I know. I wish I had a good bottle of Chablis for every time someone told me that I would like rosé if I only got rosé. I am not saying that no rosé is good — just that maybe 80 or 90 percent of them aren’t, and while no one can deny that rosé rhymes with #allday and #yesway and s’il vous plait, for me, the truly telling coincidence is that it rhymes with okay.
Rosé used to just be some swill your dad bought when, newly divorced and preparing to host his first date, he helplessly thought, “Ladies like, uhh... wine?” Then the ’80s became the ’90s, the ’90s turned into the ’00s, and then the ’00s became a big horrible blur known as “post-9/11,” so people were like, “What can we resurrect from the past? How can we comfort ourselves with nostalgia while still honoring our newfound cosmopolitanism?” Rosé was there for us.
by Sarah Miller, Eater | Read more:
Image: Mateus[ed. See also: Starbucks is Now Selling Sushi Burritos.]
