Two-Faced Rosato

{ March 22, 2010 @ 10:48 pm } · { reviews, Wine and Food }

I know that rosato(Italian for rose`)  isn’t the manliest of wines, but the rosato I am featuring today breaks the paradigm.  Rosato can either be made in two ways: mixing juice from red wine and white wine (the not so good way) or by letting the skins macerate on the white juice for a  short time(the good way) thereby extracting color from the pigmented skins.  Remember that all grape juice starts out white.   You can test this by simply squeezing a grape and watching the juice flow from the grape.  The skins contain the color pigments which then color the white juice.

The rosato that I am featuring today is vinified from one the most prestigious grapes in Italy, the Nebbiolo grape.  Nebbiolo is the grape that is used make Barolo  and Barbaresco, perhaps the most well known and most log lived wines of Italy.   The resulting red wines from this grape are low in color, high in tannin and acid and very perfumed.  As you might expect, a rosato made from this variety of Italian is not so common, which is why I want to write about it. The wine that I am talking about is the Cantalupo Rosato “Il Mimo” 2008.  This is about as manly as a rosato you can get.  It is bigger in flavor and body than most rosatos out of Italy.  This is a perfect wine for those that want to venture into red wine.  It will give you the fruitiness and pleasantness of a white while maintaining a “red-like” mouth feel.  This wine will please both the red and the white wine lover.   Not to mention it is also Spring and there is really no better way to kick this season off than some rosato.  This wine will pair wonderfully with fish especially salmon and other “meaty” fish.  Don’t be afraid to match this with  salamis, herb roasted chicken, some grilled vegetables and some good company on a sunny day.  At 16 bucks a bottle, you can’t go wrong.

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