A rosé is a rosé ... not!

In Monday's dissertation on an Australian rosé wine and its cheeky Zork-brand stopper, I mentioned that the ripe, slightly sweet Pink Knot might make a good bridge selection for wine novices seeking to discover life beyond "blush."

This raises an obvious follow-up question that's not to be answered lightly, "What's wrong with blush wine?"

The short, non-snob response is, "Nothing, really, if you like it." Industry experts estimate that the blush category makes up a solid one-sixth of all California wine shipments, suggesting that about 75 million gallons of sweet pink wine went down the hatch last year. That's a lot of wine, and from a marketing perspective, it's hard to argue that so many White Zinfandel drinkers can all be wrong.

From a wine geek's perspective, however, the problem with "blush" wine is akin to the problem with industrial American beer: With few exceptions, it's made for the mass market and styled for the least common denominator. No, it won't poison you. But to be blunt, most of it is simply not very interesting.

As I wrote when we reviewed rosé wines in our Wine Tasting 101 feature in the spring of 2005, "it's a mistake to generalize about pink wines as if they were all alike."

First, true rosé wines are distinguished from "blush" wines by their relative dryness and tart acidic structure. But perhaps even more significant, there's considerable diversity even within the rosé category. Rosé wines may vary from off-dry to bone-dry, totally sugar-free; from feather-light to full-bodied; from soft, low-level acidity to piercing steeliness; from simple fruit to complex swirls of fruit, herbs and minerals; and, not least, depending on how the wine maker has handled the "blanc de noirs" process of extracting light-colored wine from dark-colored grapes, rosé wines may range from the palest pink through rose, salmon and copper to a rich claret color that's all but indistinguishable from red wine.

Of all the world's pink wines, I find the ones that please me most come from Provence in Southern France, as often as not. Today's tasting features a splendid recent arrival from Domaine de la Petite Cassagne in the Costières de Nîmes, a wine region near the famous Camargue at the mouth of the Rhone. A blend of Grenache and Syrah, mostly, with a bit of Carignan and Mourvèdre, it's a rich, dark pink color with the intense berry fruit and subtle herbs that make Provence rosé a treat. Drink it crackling cold as a summer sipper, but don't underestimate its affinity for food.