LCBO Food & Drink Spring 2017

DRINK  WINE

OUTLOOK Rosé ONCE RELEGATED TO SUMMERTIME SIPPING, ROSÉ HAS WON LEGIONS OF

IN‑THE‑KNOW FANS WHO ENJOY IT YEAR‑ROUND. HEREWITH, A PRIMER ON THE MANY STYLES, SWEETNESS LEVELS AND COLOURS OF ROSÉ.

BY JAMES CHATTO PHOTOGRAPHY BY DARREN KEMPER

OF ALL THE CONUNDRUMS facing hu- mankind in this young millennium, the most vexing is this: what exactly will you find when you open a bottle of rosé wine?Will it be dry or sweet? Complex or simply fruity? Will it work with something sophisticated off the grill or is it best saved for cake?    Standing in front of a wall of pink wines at your local LCBO store, it can all be a bit of a mystery. The colours are beautiful—from the palest rose-petal pink to something almost dark enough to qualify as red. The deeper hue means the juice has spent a few hours longer on the crushed grape skins before being run off for fermentation. It may also have picked up some extra flavour molecules in the pro- cess, but you really can’t guess at a wine’s character from its colour. With rosé you’re basically tasting the pure flavours of the juice with minimal input from the rest of the grape.

FOOD & DRI NK SPRING 2017 89