Find light in the darkness

Rosé is not just a summer tipple, it can also be your friend in winter, as The Independent's wine columnist Rosamund Hall reveals with her four choice picks for a sunny disposition

- Rosamund Hall

When winter still feels deeply entrenched, as it currently does, there is only one wine that can lift us out of such a fug – rosé. Now, hear me out on this. Yes, it may be the perfect poolside tipple but it takes on a whole new level of loveliness in the coldest of months. So, if you usually restrict your rosé drinking to when the mercury rises, this is your sign to think again.

Most red wine or white wine lovers don’t restrict their enjoyment of these wines to a strictly seasonal level, so why is it that we do with rosé? I’m going to put it out there that for a long time, the reputation of rosé was not entirely a good one. It was made by winemakers who wanted to use up grapes from poor vintages and was best enjoyed chilled within an inch of freezing, so all aromas could be masked. And, if it wasn’t a dry style, it was likely to be an insipid sickly sweet zinfandel blush (full disclosure: I have, in the past, been known to love a glass of blush-zin. Be honest, we don’t all start by drinking the good stuff.)

Much like my tastes, the rosé category has certainly evolved and grown up. We’re now blessed with an array of drier styles, with appearances ranging from pale as water through to practically rouge and a complexity of flavours and geographical origins, too. There have, of course, always been those high-class rosés from the southern Provencal appellation of Bandol or the deepcoloured wines of the Tavel in the southern Rhone, a region that only produces rosé. But, and dare I say it, largely thanks to Whispering Angel, we as consumers have started to realise that there is more to rosé than cheap pink plonk. Whilst the phenomenon of the “Angel” doesn’t need any more column inches, it is worth acknowledging the spotlight that this brand gave to the category.