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Rosé is such a fashionable style of wine at the moment, and coming into Spring you can expect to see a rash of them released. However, all is not equal in the world of rosé, and many wines are poor examples, either simple and lollyish or thin and unsatisfying. You can imagine the temptation for a winery to cash in on the trend and certainly many on the market taste exactly as though they have been made as an afterthought. Perhaps Esk Valley winemaker Gordon Russell should be persuaded to offer other winemakers Rosé-making tutorials as a public service to the country's wine-drinkers as thankfully, Esk has always taken rosé seriously, and year after year produces an absolute cracker of a wine.
For the 2007 vintage, most of the fruit came from their Gimblett Gravels vineyards in a year where the autumn was exceptionally long and dry. Presumably this explains the lovely intensity of fruit and concentration of aroma and flavour seen in the wine, which somehow manages to combine surprising depth and complexity in what is essentially a delicate and pretty wine. If the jewel-like colour doesn't seduce you, surely the fresh strawberry/raspberry, sugar and spice character will. Made in a drier style, this is definitely a food-friendly number but will equally please on its own on a warm Spring evening. (EJ).