Foncaussade Les Parcelles Rosé 2009 Bergerac

As anyone who lives in this country and has small children will know, sitting in the garden sipping a rosé on a hot summer's day is something of a distant daydream.


Flared Trousers - trendy ?

Rosé wines, forever associated with a Provençal idyll, seem to swing in and out of fashion as wildly as flared trousers and Latino music.

All three perhaps tend to be most in fashion at the top of the economic cycle when their fun, frivolous nature is most in tune with the zeitgeist.

So a damp, chilly evening in mid-autumn when the economic climate is not so, well, rosy may seem an odd time to try a rosé, but then anything pink that can hold its own under those less-than auspicious circumstances surely should be taken seriously regardless of the vagaries of fashion.

This rosé is made from 50% Cabernet Sauvignon and 50% Merlot and comes from the little-written-about region of Bergerac on the rump end of Bordeaux which produces some fairly hefty wines when made as reds there.

A food rosé, then ? There are strawberries and redcurrants on the nose, hints of ripe tropical fruits, some spritz, an unusual but pleasant hoppiness; it is mouthfilling and both slightly elusive yet more-ish, well-structured with a long, balanced finish; a good summery quaffing wine but with the body and acidity to stand up to foods such as cream cheese and even a light goulash with sour cream and tomatoes.

If you are the type and don't have small children, it would probably work well with garden-party canapes, too.

£6.64 from Waitrose - supplied for review.

Links

Waitrose - http://www.waitrosewine.com/

Bergerac Wines website - http://www.vins-bergerac.fr/

Bergerac wines on Wikipedia - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bergerac_AOC