When the weather turns nice and we get some of those gorgeous April days that Seattle can muster, for many Seattleites the most important question is: what to drink? Whether you’re grabbing a prime outdoor table at happy hour, popping a cork in the backyard, or sneaking a bottle (or three) into your favorite local park, chances are good that you’re doing so with pink wine.
There’s no way you could have predicted it a decade ago, but Seattle has gone completely bonkers for rose. Local retailers can’t seem to stock enough of it, restaurants are adding more and more bottles to their list, and it’s a huge part of glass-pour programs across the region. Drinking pink is tremendously trendy—but why?
The first reason is that rose, having long been neglected, is still relatively inexpensive. Tons of it are made in Europe and imported at prices that are definitely consumer-friendly: $10–$15 on store shelves and $8 or so per glass at a restaurant. Those inexpensive roses are often quite good: bright and crisp without being overly fruity, a far cry from the white zinfandel that was often the only pink wine most Americans knew. In many cases, it’s the safest bet on a glass-pour list.
Plus, rose can be one of the most versatile wines when it comes to food pairings, making it a natural fit on tables. It’s often light and acidic enough to play nice with seafood and vegetable-centric dishes, but the slight hint of tannin and earthiness also allows it to stand up to the meatier fare you’d find at a summertime barbecue.
Local producers have jumped aboard the pink bandwagon in large numbers: At Taste Washington in late March I saw almost as many roses as whites, a startling experience. With our state’s wealth of grapes suitable for rose production (grenache, syrah, cabernet franc), ramping up rose production has been relatively easy for most winemakers, even if the challenges of making rose are slightly different than making either red or white wine. Roses have also proven a useful marketing tool for many wineries: They’re usually best when drunk young and can be priced more approachably than reds, which often require more expensive aging techniques.
Yet I think that rose has caught on in Seattle for an even simpler reason. There’s no arguing that the aesthetics of pink wine in a glass have a certain appeal that neither red nor white can truly match. It just looks like a good time, and that’s huge. No one ever walks by a patio table sipping a bottled of delightfully cold and crisp rose and thinks the drinkers are having a bad day. If getting a glass doesn’t put a smile on your face, it’s time to reconsider things. So here’s to rose, the official (not actually . . . get to work, Mr. Murray) drink of Seattle spring!
thebarcode@seattleweekly.com
