Wine of the week | Retailer of the month | Tasting with Oz 2007 Oyster Bay Rosé, Delegats, Hawkes Bay, New Zealand 13% ABV Sainsbury’s, £6.99 The one thing that New Zealand always guarantees you is a wine with lots of flavour, even in its pinks. They simply don’t know how to produce flavourless grapes, and even the Merlot which can produce pretty bland stuff, is full of life in Kiwi hands. The colour of the wine is quite marked here, but the flavour is more that of a crisp, ripe eating apple – gentle yet refreshing, a squirt of moreish acidity balancing a creamy mellowness in the mouth. Taken From Oz Clarke 101 Best White & Rosé Wines 2008. What Oz thinks of Rosé wine: I’m not going to give you complicated, poetic tasting notes about the pink wines, because any half-decent rosé shouldn’t have anything complicated to write about. It should sport a come-hither bright fresh colour, a fresh, inviting aroma and a happy party and picnic easygoing flavour, whether bone dry or not quite. These are good-time gluggers. And they’re becoming very popular. Last year we noted a huge increase in their popularity. This year supermarkets report pink sales shooting ahead again, often up 50 per cent. So here are the pick of the pinks. Rosé has been the traditional summer drink in the South of France and Spain for generations, but it hasn’t always been very good. Provence rosé, in particular, has usually been thin and over-priced. Well, the rest of southern France has now started sending us cheaper and tastier pinks, and Spain is showing cracking form with its rosados. But it’s the New World that has really taken up the pink baton and is running like fury with it. Chile’s juicy, super-tasty examples are leading the way. Don’t forget England, either, with its delicate, light examples. Oz Printable Tasting Sheet View the Wine of the Week Archive Check for stockists around the world at www.wine-searcher.com Continued...

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