I’m going to get the “nobody drinks enough rose`wine” harangue out of the way before I get to my main theme, so here it goes - NOBODY DRINKS ENOUGH ROSE` WINE! They are usually excellent values, most are NOT sweet, they can be drunk (depending on the particular wine) warm, lightly, or fully chilled, their beautiful and widely varying colors make it fun to guess what each will taste like vis a` vis those colors, and perhaps most importantly, they are just plain super tasty!

OK, now to the main theme: the versatility of rose`. But before directly discussing rose` let’s look at red and white wines and their overall “usefulness”. This may come as a great shock to some of you, but red wine is the LEAST versatile dry style wine, and this is attributable to two main factors: tannins and alcohol. High(er) fat and protein dishes like porterhouse steaks, a pot of beans with chorizo, or even salmon with a butter-based sauce use these substances to mitigate the ultimate agressivity of tannins and alcohol on the human palate and olfaction, causing a certain felicitous stalemate between the tannins and alcohol on one side, and fat and proteins on the other. But, pairing red wines (especially “big” ones) with more delicate or moderated ingredients often suffer under the onslaught of these substances causing the wine to obliterate the subtleties of less hearty fare.

Now white wines have zero to almost no tannins (because most tannins come from grape skins) and all things being equal, are lower in alcohol than reds - this is the reason why white wine pairs better with lighter, more delicate dishes like most fish dishes, appetizers, pastas, etc. But don’t sell whities short by implying that they can handle these sorts of dishes and no more…No, white wine has a secret weapon, and these are called ACIDS (reds have ‘em too, just not as many), subtances that can make up for its other “shortcomings”. So while proteins love to bind with tannins best, acids do a great job of cutting though and cleansing the palate of fats and proteins that build and linger in the mouth and nose, allowing you to better taste your next bite of food. For example, a good, older Champagne can do almost as much justice to a t-bone that a big Cabernet can (incredulous? try it!)

And so we turn to our hero rose`. Let’s face it, its not hard to conceive of rose` as a sort of mid-point between red and white wine, because that’s pretty much what it is. What rose` has is a sort of centrist mass appeal… First, its alcohol levels tend to fall somewhere between reds and whites, so they are rarely too big for delicate dishes, but rarely too light for more unctuous foods either. Also, the more successful rose` wines (at least for most drinkers) tend to be made from red grape varities that are naturally moderately to quite acidic (Cinsault, Sangiovese, Pinot Noir, Tibouren, Blaufrankisch, et al.), or are at least made from a blend of acidic and less acidic varieties, so acidity’s benefits to food matching are securely in the mix. BUT, because all rose` wines clearly require a certain amount of juice/skin maceration to obtain their pinkish to reddish colors, all roses have at least a little bit of tannin as well, so tannin’s ability to dance with certain food chemicals are also present at the party. So, though one rarely gets the full whack of what reds do best AND what whites do best in ALL rose` wines, one almost ALWAYS gets a fair amount of both, making rose` a sort of oenological lingua franca in its ability to communicate with all kinds of foods. It makes me think of a certain Rolling Stones song that goes “You can’t always get what you want, but if you try, sometimes you find that you get what you need.” (oh boy)

I can hear the incredulity that some of you still harbor (what!?) Don’t take my word for it. Try it for yourself. This weekend, cook up a wide range of foods - all styles, ethnicities, with meat, vegetarian, etc. Then open an “average”, versatile example of a red, a white, and a rose` with an eye toward selecting the SINGLE BEST WINE STYLE FOR EVERY DISH. If you don’t come up with the rose`, I’ll eat my hat.

TOM CIOCCO