I started tasting some of these wines in January and February of this year and at the start, some of them were nice to GREAT. This year, brings the return of Israeli Roses and white wines, after the Shmita year of 2022.

While rose wine in the non-kosher market is exploding – especially Rose wine from Provence; a wine region of France, kosher roses have ebbed and flowed. Last year, the kosher market for roses went into a tailspin. It is now clear that 2022 was the year of Peak-Rose. The 2023 year had the Israeli Shmita year of 2022 wines, so that meant a smaller number of Roses. However, what was VERY clear, was that the Kosher wine market was in Rose-fatigue. There are TONS of 2022 Roses all over the market along with some 2021 vintage wines as well. I think we have seen the end of Rose as a fad and now, it is another wine that is out there.

Personally, I stand by my own feelings when it comes to Rose, which is, that I prefer white or Sprakling wines. Further, anyone trying to move 35-dollar or more roses will be in for a rude awakening this year, IMHO!

QPR and Price

I have been having more discussions around my QPR (Quality to Price) score with a few people and their contention, which is fair, in that they see wine at a certain price, and they are not going to go above that. So, instead of having a true methodology behind their ideas, they go with what can only be described as a gut feeling. The approaches are either a wine punches above its weight class so it deserves a good QPR score. Or, this other wine has a good score and is less than 40 dollars so that makes it a good QPR wine.

While I appreciate those ideals, they do not work for everyone and they do NOT work for all wine categories. It does NOT work for roses. Look, rose prices are 100% ABSURD – PERIOD! The median rose price has risen a fair amount from last year, some are at 40 to 45 dollars – for a rose! So far, it is around 32 bucks, this year, up from 29 last year, that is NUTS!

As you will see in the scores below, QPR is all over the place and there will be good QPR scores for wines I would not buy while there are POOR to BAD QPR scores for wines I would think about drinking, but not buying, based upon the scores, but in reality, I would never buy another bottle because the pricing is ABSURDLY high.

Also, remember that the QPR methodology is based on the 4 quintiles! Meaning, that there is a Median, but there are also quintiles above and below that median. So a wine that is at the top price point is by definition in the upper quintile. The same goes for scores. Each step above and below the median is a point in the system. So a wine that is in the most expensive quintile but is also the best wine of the group gets an EVEN. Remember folks math wins!

Still, some of the wines have a QPR of great and I would not buy them, why? Well, again, QPR is based NOT on quality primarily, it is based on price. The quality is secondary to the price. For example, if a rose gets a score of 87 points, even though that is not a wine I would drink it if it has a price below 32 dollars (that is 10 dollars more than two years ago – like I said crazy inflation) – then the QPR score is GREAT. Again, simple math wins. Does that mean that I would buy them because they have a GREAT QPR? No, I would not! However, for those that still want roses, then those are OK options.

Please remember, a wine score and the notes are the primary reason why I would buy a wine – PERIOD. The QPR score is there to mediate, secondarily, which of those wines that I wish to buy, is a better value. ONLY, the qualitative score can live on its own, regarding what I buy. The QPR score defines, within the wine category, which of its peers is better or worse than the wine in question.

Finally, I can, and I have, cut and paste the rest of this post from last year’s Rose post and it plays 100% the same as it did last year (minus the 2022 Shmita story).

So, if you know all about roses and how it is made, skip all the information and go to the wines to enjoy for this year, of the wines I have tasted so far. If you do not know much about rose wine, read on. As stated, I stand by my opinion that Rose is a fad, at best, and now is the time to join team white wine! White wines have cheaper prices, better scores, and therefore a better overall value. IF YOU MUST have a rose wine stick to the few that I state below in my Best Roses section, right above the wine scores.

Kosher Rose pricing

I want to bring up a topic I have been hammering on in my past posts, price! Yeah, I hear you, Avi Davidowitz, of KosherWineUnfiltered, please quiet down, gloating does not suit you – (smiley face inserted here). The prices of Rose wines have gotten out of control. They are now median priced at 34 dollars with some crazy outliers like 45 or 50 dollars, for a rose! The worst offenders are from Israel followed by the U.S.A. Interestingly, Europe is not the high-priced leader, though that will change once the new Roubines arrive here in the USA, they are already released in Europe.

QPR (Quality to Price Ratio) has become nonexistent, essentially here in the USA, for the kosher rose market. Finally, I am sorry, but I feel that wineries were either hampered in some way with the 2023 rose vintage, or honestly, they just threw in the towel, The 2023 vintage is as bad or worse than the 2022 vintage, and the 2022 roses were the worst one in the last 10 years, AGAIN. The roses of 2023 feel like commodities at best, they feel rushed, with no real care, rhyme, or reason. They feel like we have peaked. They are nowhere near the 2015 vintage that put Chateau Roubine on the map for kosher wine drinkers. This year’s crop of roses feel like half-hearted pure cash cows, and really without love behind them, AGAIN. I get it that running a winery is a tough business, and you need cash flow, and the best cash flow product out there is Rose and Sauvignon Blanc wines. At least there are some GREAT or WINNER Sauvignon Blanc, Pinot Blanc, and other white wines from 2022 and 2023.

As always, I will be chastised for my opinions, and my pronouncements, and I am fine with that. This is a wake-up post, last year there were one or two good roses, but at this point of the season, there was almost nothing worth buying as well. In the end, I will repeat this statement many times, I would rather buy, the Gilgal Brut, 2023 Hagafen Riesling, Dry, 2023 Goose Bay Sauvignon Blanc, 2022 O’dwyers Creek Sauvignon Blanc, 2022 Pacifica Riesling, and many more. There are far better options, cheaper and more refreshing, and more flexible in the world of white wine! PLEASE!!!

I was thinking about going with the title: There are no Roses here to talk about. The sad truth is that there are many Roses from Israel that are not great. I refuse to write anything bad about them. That is all I will say. So, rest assured I have tasted all of them and if the Rose, from Israel, is not listed below, then enough said! Based on that statement there are really few Roses I can recommend. I have not yet tasted the 2023 European Roses, but they are, for the most part, not yet available here in the USA, as there are still too many 2022 European Roses all over the market on shelves.

Wine Color

What is a rose wine? Well, simply said, a rose is a wine that can best be defined as the wine world’s chameleon. Where white wine is a pretty simple concept – take white grapes, squeeze them, and you get clear to green-colored juice. Yes, the white grape juice is clear – well so is red grape juice, but more on that in a bit.

White wine is not about color – almost all color in a white wine comes from some oak influence of some sort. So, an unoaked Sauvignon Blanc or Pinot Gris can sometimes look almost clear, depending on the region and how the wine was handled. Now oaked Chardonnay, of course, is what most people use as an example of dark white wine. As the Wine Folly linked above states, different wine regions oak their Chardonnay differently, and as such, they are sold with different hues from the start. With age, the wine changes color, and the light gold moves to darker gold shades.

The only real exception to the stated rule above – that white grape juice without the influence of oak is somewhere in the clear to the green color spectrum, is – orange wines. We have spoken about orange wines – mostly thanks to Yaacov Oryah. Outside of Yaacov’s work, there really is no orange wine in the kosher world to speak about. Orange wine is made exactly like red wine, which means that the clear grape juice is left to sit on the yellowish to dark yellow grape skins (depending upon what varietal is used to make the orange wine). Another name for them is skin-macerated white wines or extended skin-macerated white wines.

Red wine juice – straight from the grape comes out the same color as white grapes. You see the juice from grapes is mostly clear to greenish in color. The red wine color comes from macerating the juice on the grape skins. The longer the juice sits on the grape skins (wine must) the redder in color the wine becomes until it reaches its maximum red color potential.

The only real exception to the rule of a grape’s juice color is the Teinturier varieties. The grapes are called Teinturier, a French language term meaning to dye or stain. The list of grapes whose juice is red-colored is long – but the list of kosher wine options that is a wine made from these grapes – is the Herzog Alicante Bouschet. The Gamay de Bouze is not a normal Gamay grape, it is one of those grape mutations that are very red.

Rose wines are the in-between story – hence the chameleon term I used above.

Rose Wine

Rose wine is made in one of three ways. I will list the most dominant manners and leave the last one for last.

Limited Maceration:

This is the first step of the first two options and the only difference is what you do with the rest of the juice after you remove it. You see, as we stated above, the color of the juice from red grapes is clear to green, and for one to get the lovely red hues we all love from red wine, it requires the juice to lie on the grape skins – AKA maceration.

The rose hue depends on how long the juice macerates. I have heard winemakers say 20 minutes gives them the color they like, and some say almost half a day or longer. The longer the juice macerates the darker the color. While the wine is macerating, the skins are contributing color by leaching phenolics – such as anthocyanins and tannins, and flavor components. The other important characteristic that the skins leach into the rose is – antioxidants that protect the wine from degrading. Sadly, because rose wines macerate for such a short time, the color and flavor components are less stable, and as such, they lack shelf life – a VERY IMPORTANT fact we will talk about later. Either way, drinking rose wine early – like within the year – is a great approach for enjoying rose wine at its best!

Now once you remove the liquid, after letting it macerate for the desired length of time, the skins that are left are thrown out or placed in the field to feed organic material into the vines. This is a very expensive approach indeed because the grapes are being thrown away, instead of doing the Saignée process which is described in option #2. This approach is mostly used in regions where rose wine is as important as red wines, like Provence and Languedoc-Roussillon. Mind you, the grapes used in this method are most often picked early, as they are solely used for making the rose.

Many producers, especially those in Provence and Languedoc-Roussillon, take a more traditional approach when making rosé wine. Grapes are grown and selected exclusively for rosé production, as stated above, and then often crushed as whole clusters, and then gently pressed until the juice reaches a desirable pale color.

Most think that Saignee wines would have a higher alcohol level, as the fruit used to make that wine is picked later, but actually, that is not always correct, as winemakers can water back the rose juice and get what they want, at least here in the USA. When you taste the wine, look for the acid, is the acid natural or out of place?

Saignée:

The second approach for how Rose wine is made, is essentially the same as maceration – the only difference is that they do not remove all the juice. In the second method for making Rose wine, the Rose is the afterthought – in DRASTIC contrast to the first approach, where the rose is primary.

Now, many winemakers may take affront to this statement, and one did actually, but that is my opinion. When the juice is removed to fortify the red wine, the rose wine, again IMHO, is an afterthought. That DOES NOT mean, that the winemaker does not take the rose wine seriously. Any decent winemaker that makes wine, should be doing it with 100% focus. My point is that if the rose was important to you, you would pull the fruit earlier, but hey that is my opinion, and yeah, I am not a winemaker.

So in places like California and Rhone in France, winemakers will pick the grapes when they reach their appropriate phenolics. Then to concentrate the wine, the winemaker will bleed some of the juice – hence the term Saignée in French which means bleed. By removing this juice, after the juice has been macerated long enough, the resulting wine is further intensified, because there is less juice lying on the same amount of grape skin surface.

The interesting thing here is that the grapes used to make this kind of rose are normally one with higher Brix, as the grapes are destined for red wine. So, when you bleed the juice out of the must, what is being pulled out is juice at a higher alcohol level than Rose wines made using the first method (as explained above). So what do you do when you have a wine that is too high in alcohol so early in the game – well that is simple you water it down! Now remember this wine is already low on phenolics and color, so if you know that your rose will be high in alcohol when all is said and done, you have lots of options here. You can leave the juice to macerate for longer, yes the juice you finally pull out may well be darker than you desire. However, you will be watering it down, so it is all a question of numbers and winemakers who make these kinds of wines, are used to it and know how to handle it.

Now you ask what is wrong with the high alcohol rose. Well, a rose is normally meant to be light and fruity wine, and personally, watered-back roses are less so, but I have also enjoyed a few Saignee wines in the past.

Blending Method:

Finally, what do you get when you mix some white wine with some red wine – a rose by George a rose! This last method is the least common method for creating still rose wines. That said, it is very common in the world of Champagne and sparkling wines. Next time you enjoy sparkling rose wine, you can almost be sure that it is a blend of Chardonnay (white wine) and either Pinot Noir or Pinot Meunier (red wine).

As stated before, in the still rose wine market, there is very little of this kind of rose wine being made.

State of kosher rose wines

Types of Rose made:

1. Red Rose wines: There are truly a few examples of this, but they have been made and they are not rose wines. They are billed as a rose at times, but to me, they are essentially a light red wine, much like a Gamay
2. Sweet/Ripe Rose wines: Sweet wines are created because either the winemaker could not get the wine to finish primary fermentation or because they stopped it. Sweet rose wines sometimes lack balance because they lack the screaming acid needed to make it all work. This year, the vast majority of the kosher roses were ripe, sweet, or unbalanced messes.
   That said, sweeter rose wines are the gateway wines to get people to try drier wines. The best of the sweet/ripe rose this year if that is even a statement that makes sense, would be the 2021 Hajdu Rose.
3. Dry rose wines: Dry is not a subjective concept it is measurable in a lab and can be tasted as well. That said, what we as humans can perceive does seem to be subjective. Some of us will think a Sauvignon Blanc is sweet unless it is a Sancerre – you know who you are EP! Dr. Vinny was asked this question here, and essentially we can start perceiving sweetness at 0.5% residual sugar, but as the Doc says, sometimes a bone-dry wine can be perceived as sweet because of its ripeness and/or lack of acidity to balance it. To me, that was where the Chateau Roubine was this year, dry, but not complex in any way.
4. Dark rose wines: Color in any rose or red wine is defined by the amount of maceration the wine goes through, as described above. Some people like that salmon color and some like that darker rose color. There are so many colors in the rose spectrum, and no, the darker roses are not based on what grape is used in the making of the wine, unless it is based on a Teinturier grape – which I have yet to see.

So where does that leave us? To recap IMHO, rose wine is meant to be light, refreshing, tart, and low in alcohol. It can have a varying rose hue, from Gris (gray in French – light color) to Salmon, to rose, and up to dark red. Yes, there have been wineries that tried making heavier rose wines, which were essentially red wines, which I will not mention and they have all been epic disasters. If you want a red wine – make a Gamay and leave me alone! Rose is about summer, tart, and refreshing wine.

White and Rose wine education

Royal Wines has done a great job of bringing in white and Rose wines, but I must stress – we need more education! Any wine distributor today can sell a Cabernet Sauvignon in its sleep! Why? Because the kosher wine-drinking public is programmed to drink big bold red wines! Nothing light and lithe, only sledgehammers! Now, who am I to disagree with what someone likes – if you like a particular wine great! What I would like to see is people finding a way to expand their palate – by doing so they will learn more about wines and maybe they will see why they like and dislike a wine more – education is the answer! Now to those who say – why bother, if they like it let them enjoy it. To that answer, I say – sure, when u were three years old you liked mud, and you liked spreading it all over your sister’s new white dress! Should we have let you enjoy it forever?? Of course not!

Now your reply will be, come on we are talking about wine – not about personal growth and their humanity! Of course, but like everything in this world – we should want to strive and learn more about what makes us happy and why! Are you still eating Mac and Cheese for dinner? What about peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for lunch? I have nothing against, P&J – I like them, but I have grown out of them which is the point here!

If you like a Monet painting – you owe it to yourself to learn why. What grabs you when you see 100+-year-old paint on a canvas? So what he painted a haystack – good for him? What makes you want to stare at it for hours? The answer is inside of you – and you need to learn the answer. I hope we can all find the answers to what makes us tick, why we all love some things, and why we hate other things. That is called human evolution – it makes us what we are – human! Anyway, I am off my soapbox now, but I hope we can agree that growth is good – no matter the subject.

I beg distributors and wineries to get out and teach! Get out and go to wine stores and pour wines – pour wine to anyone who wants to taste or even to those who do not! Education is the foundation of this industry – and without it, we are doomed to stasis – something that terrifies me!

The temperature to enjoy Rose

Please do yourself a favor and enjoy rose wine at 60 degrees Fahrenheit. Meaning if you leave a bottle of wine in your refrigerator and pull it out after half a day of fridge time or more, it will probably be at the refrigerator’s frigid temperature of 37 or so degrees Farenight – which is HORRIBLE for a rose. Rose at room temperature of 70 or so degrees is also not fun. It needs to be a bit cold, but not over the top. Please do not think that it needs to be iced down in an ice bucket either, that is for sparkling wines.

Drink the rose at the beginning of the meal

Rose is NOT a long-term drinking animal. It is not meant to be enjoyed for more than a meal. Why? Because as we explained above once it is fully oxygenated, it will go bad – quickly. The tart fruit notes and the acid will dissipate faster than air leaves a punctured tire. It is simply the life of Rose, drink it very young and fast. Never stock up on Rose, there is no purpose in that! Go to the store and buy a rose and drink it, if they have none, then no worries drink something else.

White and Rose wine drinking in the kosher wine world

The good news is that white wine is selling better than it ever has. There is a large number of very good, solid, white wines from California and Europe, with a few Israeli wines as well, that are reasonably priced and very enjoyable. Of course, there are also higher-end white wines that are even more fascinating, but overall the good news is that white wine consumption and availability have been on the rise in the kosher wine market, just not where I live, LOL! I still cannot pour white wine on my table, though in the end, who cares, I will enjoy it and the guests can drink more red wine, win-win.

The very sad state of affairs with Roses in 2024 (much like all the previous years)

So where are we in 2024 with kosher Rose wines? We are still selling old vintages and that has to stop. This is a broken record already. There are MANY brick-and-mortar and online wine shops, even in the hallowed grounds of NYC, that still have Rose wines on their shelves, from the 2020 and 2021 vintages. Why is that a problem? As stated above, Rose wines are NOT meant for aging. Rose wines should NEVER be sold after their drink-by date, which is the summer after the wine’s vintage. So, 2023 wines should be sold out by the summer of 2024 – simple! Sadly, I still see 2021 wines being sold all around! There is simply too much older rose lying around and too many new 2023 Rose wines coming in. The outcome is that someone is going to eat a lot of rose wines, or they will push them on to the unsuspecting public, who do not understand roses at all.

I BEG the manufacturers to work with the stores and merchants to eat the older wines, one way or the other, and get them OFF the shelves. Please DO NOT attempt to put them on sale, they are not wines that should be pushed to consumers, as it only ends up hurting the wineries and the companies selling them. Please remove them and figure out how to handle the loss. No one will be drinking Rose wines for Rosh Hashanah.

One part that is better than last year is that many of the rose wines are here already, even earlier than last year. I wish they would have all arrived already, and some have, but with the world we live in, it is still better than last year. Please dump the old roses and move on!

Best rose so far in 2024

Well, let’s hold up here for a second. As stated above, I have not tasted all the roses out there yet. I am surprised by how many of the 2023 roses are already here but sadly, I have not tasted ANY of the new 2023 European Roses (France, Spain, or Italy). I will also say that I have tasted almost all the Israeli Roses that are available here in the USA. They may not be posted below, all that means is that I did not love it. Enough said.

If there are two ideas you get from this post that would be great. ONE: Drink only 2023 roses now. TWO: Drink refreshing roses. A rose that feels heavy, unbalanced, and one that does not make you reach for more, is not a rose I would recommend.

There are now a total of four QPR WINNER wines, two of them are from California and the other two are from Israel. All of them are available here in the USA. Sadly, in Israel, some of the Israeli 2023 Roses, are stuck behind the 2022 Shmita wines. In Israel the Shmita wines sell fine, but they had so many available last year that there are not many 2023 Roses available in Israel, at this moment!

1. 2023 Hajdu Rose – one of the two Cali WINNER
2. 2023 Covenant Rose – the other Cali Rose WINNER
3. 2023 Bat Shlomo Rose – One of the two Roses from Israel that are WINNER
4. 2023 Recanati Rose, Gris de Marselan – the other WINNER from Israel, and IMHO, the better of the two, and cheaper

The wine notes follow below – the explanation of my “scores” can be found here and the explanation for QPR scores can be found here:

2023 Bat Shlomo Rose, Galilee – Score: 91 (QPR: WINNER) (tasted blind)
The nose of this wine is nice, with good strawberry, raspberry, a bit of slate, and orange blossom. The mouth of this medium-bodied wine is nice, with great acidity, nice orange blossom, orange notes, grapefruit, and smoke. nice! The finish is nice, a bit ripe, but balanced and showing a bit of tension and slate/mineral. Drink now. (tasted January 2024) (in Jerusalem, Israel) (ABV = 11.7%)

2023 Covenant Rose, Lodi, CA – Score: 91 (QPR: WINNER)
The nose of this wine is fun, classic Grenache, with ripe strawberry, tart raspberry, passion fruit, and smoke. The mouth of this medium-bodied wine is lovely, ripe, juicy, and refreshing, with tropical notes, passion fruit, strawberry, dark raspberry, and minerality. Nice! The finish is long, ripe, balanced, and fun, fruity, refreshing, tropical, flinty funk, nice! Drink now. (tasted February 2024) (in Berkeley, CA) (ABV = 12.3%)

2023 Hajdu Rose, California – Score: 91 (QPR: WINNER)
The nose of this wine is fun, a bit serious, and austere, with strawberry and cream, lemon, lime, and sweet notes. The mouth of this medium-bodied wine is fun, with good acidity, fresh, juicy strawberry, raspberry, and guava, with great flint and smoke, a really fun wine and refreshing wine. The finish is long, flinty, smoky, and ripe, but fresh and juicy, Bravo! Drink now. (tasted February 2024) (in Berkeley, CA) (ABV = 13.5%)

2023 Recanati Rose, Gris de Marselan, Galilee – Score: 91 (QPR: WINNER)
The nose of this wine is nice enough, it has more minerality, but it also has more pith, with peach, gooseberry, strawberry, and smoke. The mouth of this medium-bodied wine is nice, the pith throws me, and the acidity is enough, with gooseberry, strawberry, hints of raspberry, nice saline, the cleanest rose so far, with good refreshment, the pith is a bit much, but it recedes with time. The finish is long, tart, refreshing, and correct, with the salinity, flint, and gooseberry lingering long. Drink now. (tasted April 2024) (in San Jose, CA) (ABV = 11.5%)

2023 Mayacamas Rose, Grenache, Napa Valley, CA – Score: 91 (QPR: EVEN)
The nose of this wine is clean, with no pith, no bitterness, just lovely fruit, strawberry & cream, nice minerality, good gooseberry, peach, apricot, and pear. The mouth of this medium-bodied rose is nice, it shows good fruit, great acidity, and nice freshness, with gooseberry, ripe strawberry & cream, pomelo, peach, lovely saline, a nice attack, with good fruit focus, wrapped in salinity and minerality, very nice. The finish is long, tart, refreshing, and enjoyable, with good saline, flint, rock, and fruit lingering long. Nice! Drink now. (tasted March 2024) (in San Jose, CA) (ABV = 13.33%)

2023 Matar Rose, Galilee – Score: 90+ (QPR: GREAT) (tasted blind)
This wine is a blend of 85% Grenache & 15% counoise. The nose of this wine is lovely, classic strawberries, strawberries and creme, nice raspberries, and flint. The mouth of this medium-bodied wine is nice, with good acidity, a bit hollow, with nice strawberries and creme, raspberries, and some tension. Nice drink now. (tasted January 2024) (in Jerusalem, Israel) (ABV = 11%)

2023 Puzzle Grenache Rose, Samson (M) – Score: 90 (QPR: GREAT)
This wine is nice, showing clean lines, Grenache rose, good strawberry, cherry, and peach. The mouth is good, the acidity is good not a pith monster, refreshing and not hollow, nice! (tasted February 2024) (in Jewish Link Wine Tasting, NJ) (ABV = 12%)

2023 Recanati Rose, Galilee – Score: 90 (QPR: GREAT)
This is one of the most classically correct roses I have tasted from Israel’s 2023 vintage, so far. The nose of this wine screams strawberry and cream, rich salinity, nice raspberry, peach, and flint, nice! The mouth of this medium-bodied wine is nice, with good acidity, with strawberry and cream, raspberry, good mouthfeel, nice freshness, peach, and grapefruit. The issue is the finish is short, and that makes it less refreshing, with too much pith. Drink now. (tasted April 2024) (in San Jose, CA) (ABV = 11%)

2023 Mony Tale of Rose, Samson (M) – Score: 89 (QPR: EVEN)
This wine is good enough, showing enough acidity, not too much pith, peach, strawberry, nice saline, good fruit and acidity, nice focus, good. (tasted February 2024) (in Jewish Link Wine Tasting, NJ) (ABV = 13%)

2023 Summer Ice Rose, Pays d’Oc (M) – Score: 86 (QPR: GOOD)
The nose is nice on this wine with strawberry, raspberry, watermelon, and sweet notes of guava and melon. The mouth of this medium-bodied wine has residual sugar (RS), with sweet notes, but overall, refreshing, tart, and very simple. This is not a Rose I would buy or drink but it is still perfectly fine for those that like a lump of sugar in their drink. The finish is long, tart, balanced, and has good fruit without those annoying bitter notes. Drink now! (tasted February 2024) (in San Jose, CA) (ABV = 12.5%)

2023 Eclat de Diamant Rose, Pays d’Oc (M) – Score: 85 (QPR: EVEN)
The nose of this wine is its best characteristic, with lemon, lime, and strawberry, but even here the nose is muted, and somewhat cooked. The mouth of this medium-bodied wine is boring, cooked, tart, with enough acidity, but the Mevushal killed this wine, I think, it is flat with cooked notes, cooked melon, lemon, and too much bitterness. Drink up! (tasted February 2024) (in San Jose, CA) (ABV = 13%)

2023 Sirocco Gris du Sud, Pays d’Oc (M) – Score: 83 (QPR: EVEN)
This is another cooked juice Rose that is stunted, muted, and cooked. Cooked and flat strawberry, raspberry, and creme. Nothing here to write about – next! (tasted February 2024) (in San Jose, CA) (ABV = 13.5%)

2023 Les Chemins d’Andrea Cabernet Rose, Pays d’Oc – Score: 82 (QPR: EVEN)
This is an off-dry Rose and yeah, no! It is well made, but not for me. (tasted February 2024) (in San Jose, CA) (ABV = 12.5%)

————————– Thrown in as it is epic and a “rose” —————————–

2017 Golan Heights Winery Yarden Rose, Brut, Galilee – Score: 92 (QPR: WINNER)
The nose of this wine shows beautifully, with big bright fruit, intense acidity, lemon, lime Fraiche, creamy strawberry notes, intense brioche, hints of dragon fruit, loads of minerals, and rock. Nice!! The mouth of this medium-bodied wine is ready to go, though the mouthfeel is a bit muted to start, with time it shows searing acidity, with the elegance of dried strawberry, tart green apple, and juicy raspberry, lemon/lime/grapefruit. What hits you is the creamy mouthfeel, with layers of citrus fruit and acid wrapped in lovely small mousse bubbles, green notes, and more brioche, showing rich saline, sweet melon, with layers of acidity, and more rocks. The finish is long, green, and tart, with crazy acidity, mineral, ripe red fruit, and slate galore. Bravo!! Drink until 2026 maybe a bit more. (tasted April 2024) (in San Jose, CA) (ABV = 12%)