Bathroom Break: Rosé Tasting
Today I'm taking a break from thinking about the bathroom and instead sipping some rosé. I just happened to buy two very similar looking wines recently, so I thought, "Why not taste them side-by-side?!" It's not as easy to do this with my first love (red wine) without being wasteful, since I'm the only wine-drinker in the house and really can't have more than a bottle open at a time. Whites and rosés can just be popped back in the fridge and kept for days, assuming your spouse won't get fed up with the cramped fridge space...
So the wine: both dry French styles / around $12 per bottle / even sporting the same cute little glass stoppers instead of a cork. And alllmost the same blend of grapes.
I first tasted rosé when I was living in Provence, but unfortunately, I wasn't a huge wine fan at the time. (I know... absolutely tragic!) However, that wonderful summer really was the beginning of my love for wine. Being "forced" to drink wine at dinner with my host family acclimated my virgin palate juuust enough to make me curious about wine once I got back home. And it helped me see that the pink stuff is so much more than the fizzy sweet white zin of the past.
I am loving the fact that we now have so many more rosés available year-round in the US, although it's still mostly treated as a summer beverage. And maybe it's my novice status, but I feel like you don't have to spend a whole lot to get a decent rosé around here.
I'm blanking on where I picked up the Gérard Bertrand (Costco or Trader Joe's), but the Famille Bieler was on sale (a whopping dollar off) at Target. I had had the GB before and liked it, so I knew that was probably a good buy. The FB... Let's be real here: the label looked cool, and I will buy pretty much ANYTHING that comes out of Aix-en-Provence (where I lived for a summer).
Let's jump into the tasting notes!
Gérard Bertrand 2017 Cote des Roses, Languedoc region
Clean, light, dry. Peach.
Famille Bieler 2017 Rosé from Aix-en-Provence
Tastes very similar to the Bieler, but perhaps with a little more funk. I think this could stand up to some richer dishes if you were to pair it with food.
In sum: you probably could've blindfolded me and switched these, and I would've thought they were the same wine. Good wine for a decent price. Great on their own, on a warm summer day.
So the wine: both dry French styles / around $12 per bottle / even sporting the same cute little glass stoppers instead of a cork. And alllmost the same blend of grapes.
I first tasted rosé when I was living in Provence, but unfortunately, I wasn't a huge wine fan at the time. (I know... absolutely tragic!) However, that wonderful summer really was the beginning of my love for wine. Being "forced" to drink wine at dinner with my host family acclimated my virgin palate juuust enough to make me curious about wine once I got back home. And it helped me see that the pink stuff is so much more than the fizzy sweet white zin of the past.
I am loving the fact that we now have so many more rosés available year-round in the US, although it's still mostly treated as a summer beverage. And maybe it's my novice status, but I feel like you don't have to spend a whole lot to get a decent rosé around here.
I'm blanking on where I picked up the Gérard Bertrand (Costco or Trader Joe's), but the Famille Bieler was on sale (a whopping dollar off) at Target. I had had the GB before and liked it, so I knew that was probably a good buy. The FB... Let's be real here: the label looked cool, and I will buy pretty much ANYTHING that comes out of Aix-en-Provence (where I lived for a summer).
Let's jump into the tasting notes!
Gérard Bertrand 2017 Cote des Roses, Languedoc region
Clean, light, dry. Peach.
Famille Bieler 2017 Rosé from Aix-en-Provence
Tastes very similar to the Bieler, but perhaps with a little more funk. I think this could stand up to some richer dishes if you were to pair it with food.
In sum: you probably could've blindfolded me and switched these, and I would've thought they were the same wine. Good wine for a decent price. Great on their own, on a warm summer day.
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