ROMANIAN ROSE COMPETITION - 9TH EDITION
Data: 17-05-2021
With the support of international wine experts, ROMANIAN ROSE WINE COMPETITION held its 9th edition on May 14th, in Comana resort.
The 3 jurors from the Nice panel: Elizabeth Gabay MW, Bruno Scavo ASI Diploma and myself, Julia Scavo DipWSET plus the 2 “hors-concours” - Ben Bernheim international juror, wine writer and sommelier, Antoine-Alex Mordiconi sales agent, we all live in South of France and taste a lot of the local production. It is especially the case of Elizabeth and Ben who are about to finish writing a guide of rosé wines from South of France. These last years, the Provence style has evolved into a distinctive style where “the lack of” becomes a plus: wines have become that pale that the Centre du rosé of Vidauban (research and experiment center created in 1999 aiming to improve the quality of rosé wines by means of scientifical tools) has recently introduced 2 new colours: “pearly” and “sandy” shades of pink to describe the palest rosés. Grapes are harvested early and therefore bring delicate aromas, they are directly pressed into the most sophisticated presses, so they lack tannins, fining will erase any trace of whatever could remind pehnolics. Moderate acidities, with fresh feeling, lower alcohols than few years ago… In Provence we have the grape varieties for, the recipe and the technique. And the PDO régulations. Rosé is thought in the vineyard here and there is few room for the surprise element! I am not being critical but I think we were all happy to taste colourful rosés (see picture) some of them flavoursome and having phenolics. All 16 samples were very different from one to another. We were not searching for any typicality since there is almost no concept of identifiable features over the country. We were expecting Merlot or Cabernet to appear in most of the cases, although Syrah is the rosé rising star and the Feteasca Neagra arrives step by step into the preferences. Pinot Noir reigns in the cooler climates while Pinot Gris decreases the colour and adds layers of aromatics as we could notice with the last sample which we barely considered to be in the good flight. Very few use Negru de Dragasani (maybe because of the colour extraction) and even less Novac because of its rarity and capricious nature.Data: 17-05-2021
With the support of international wine experts, ROMANIAN ROSE WINE COMPETITION held its 9th edition on May 14th, in Comana resort.
I was expecting to find a lot of technical vinification: low temperature, thiolic or amylic flavours, but only few amyl esters appeared in the panel. I guess it would be difficult to get thiols, otherwise Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot would have herbaceous pyrazine. Co-vinification with whites being forbidden, thiols would not come from that area either. Anyway, very few enthusiasms for a standard style, most of the producers seem to be proud to have a kind of unique selling proposition. The only form of standardization can come from yeasts and low temperature vinification to enhance esters, which we found, however. Sulfites were decent, but in some cases wines didn´t seem totally settled and showed some pungent SO2 notes.
I should notice that some serious rosés were missing from the tasting: certain producers bottle later than the deadline for selections. Some decided to bottle earlier to have the chance to participate, and the wines might not have been completely settled or in the best shape for the early phases of the competition. This could explain the absence of some sought after names or sometimes the presence of a mid-level wine while not the top one from the same producer.
The quality has much improved over the years, wines are cleaner with a declared search for purity, freshness and drinkability which I much appreciate. Digest, still adapted to pair with food, this is a common feature to most of the rosé tasted.
I believe that the Romanian Rosé is a land of experiments, as there is not too much frame to restrict originality. I do appreciate the funky spirit of some, and I encourage others to experiment too, since few legal frames exist.
(to be continued)
Editorial publicat in data de:
17-05-2021
de către Julia Scavo, DipWSET
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de către Julia Scavo, DipWSET
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