10 May 2023 – Wine Pleasure’s team of expert judges tasted through several flights of rosés to bring to the attention of the trade the best 50. Competition Director, Anthony Swift takes a look at the results.
France Spain and Italy dominated the Gold and Silver medal awards with Austria, Croatia, Portugal and USA also picking up awards.
The top 50 wines (<5 g/l no oak category and mostly from the 2022 vintage) showed a range of fruit and floral characters including cassis, peach, strawberry, cherry, blueberry, melon, pomegranate, apricot….Palates were on the whole vibrant, crips with pleasant lines of acidity throughout with elegant textures.
Wine colour ranged from water-white (with two judges suggesting they were white wines with a dash of colour and not at all rosés) to almost red wine colour with the majortity showing light pink colours typically associated with those of Provence origin. There didn’t appear however, to be any correlation between wine colour and quality.
A small percentage of the wines had spent time in oak with few making the top 50. The ones that did showed sufficient balance and structure to combine the fruit and the oak and were all awarded silver medals. Of great disappointment were the rosés in the 5-18 g/l no oak category with all wines entered scoring less than 90 points.
While price of the wine was not a factor taken into consideration during the blind tasting, it is interesting to point out the that retail prices ranged from €5,95 to €30 with most retailing at €12- €15.
With the competition titled 50 Great Rosé Wines of the World the entries received were, in the most of high quality as producers more than likely only decide to enter if they believe they are confident of winning a medal. After a challenging and debated tasting the judges awarded 11 Gold and 39 Silver Medals to be included in the 50 top rosés of the world.
