Summer wines: rosés (II)

We mentioned in the previous post that, with the summer season, the consumption of white wines increases significantly. Something similar happens with rosés, although these wines have been unfairly considered, especially in Spain, as ‘minor’.
In fact, these wines are probably the most complicated to make. In recent years, there has been a strong increase in consumption abroad, which has led many wineries that had stopped producing them to include them again in their portfolio.
The “latest generation” rosés are paler in color, in many cases due to the incorporation of significant quantities of white grapes, in the case of Rioja, mainly Viura with Tempranillo or Garnacha, in line with the traditional wines of the upper Najerilla area, the claretes.
Familia Martínez Bujanda makes a rosé that we could call traditional, the Viña Bujanda 100% tempranillo, in which a fruity nose stands out, with powerful aromas of strawberry and raspberry and a very pleasant freshness in the mouth, but also with volume and, above all, an enveloping sweetness.
Low temperature fermentation maintains the wine’s natural acidity, which gives the impression of a certain ‘sparkle’ on the tip of the tongue in the first months of bottling that enhances its freshness.
The rosé, served very fresh, can be consumed at any time, especially at this time of the year, and can accompany almost any type of food: fish, pasta, rice, all types of Italian food, even white meats. In fact, there are times when we do not know which wine to use to pair with a modern cuisine dish, of Asian influence for example, and it will surely do it perfectly with a rosé .
We talk about summer wines and we have talked about whites and rosés, but no one has said that reds are ‘forbidden’. In this case, red wine cannot be served at room temperature in this season, so, although without going overboard, if we choose to order a red wine in a restaurant we should not ‘cut ourselves’ and ask for an ice bucket to cool it if the establishment does not have a cellar with temperature control. The red wine, in the case of young wines, can be perfectly lowered to 12 degrees for consumption and in the case of aged wines it can be consumed at 15 and even 14 degrees perfectly. Our summer tip for red wine drinkers is
Cantos de Valpiedra
(Rioja).