Holy Rosé
One of my absolute favorite wine writers, Austin-based Jeremy Parzen, published a little love letter to this wine this morning in his wonderful blog, Do Bianchi. Read it here. If you are interested in the big, messy and at times breathtakingly beautiful convergence of wine (often but not always Italian), culture, music and language, drop everything and follow him now. I wrote this 2 years ago about the 2009 Schloss Gobelsburg Rosé when I was working at that other place. I'm so excited to be pouring the 2012 at The Inaugural Wine & Cider Picnic this Sunday at Fischmans.
QUI BON VIN BOIT DIEU VOIT (!!!)
Holy Rosé
Here's a cool breeze, a fine wide-brimmed straw hat, loose-fitting linen shirt kinda wine: a silken, almost weightless rosé made by a self-taught winemaker named Michael "Michi" Moosbrugger who also happens to make a couple Erste Lage (aka Grand Cru) Grüner Veltliners and Rieslings so insanely, overpoweringly beautiful that grown men have been known to weep in their glasses. HOWEVER, and I find this to be often the case (see Fred Scherrer), behind every GREAT and IMMORTAL wine, there is frequently a humble vin gris or dry rosé -- what the French call a "vin de soif" -- a wine for thirst. Michi's Rosé Cistercien is exactly that wine. Named in honor of the monastic order from whom he inherited these exalted, ancient vineyards (we're talking 12th century, as old any Burgundy clos) carved into bare sandstone cliffs above the Kamp river, a tributary of the Danube, whose motto is "QUI BON VIN BOIT DIEU VOIT" -- He who drinks well sees G-d. Sign me up.
Zweigelt and St. Laurent from cool sites in Kamptal. Fermented in tank and matured in neutral oak casks. No malo. One taster picked up garden herbs -- thyme -- and raspberries. I can see that. But I think the magic of this wine is not so much what it tastes like, but how it makes you feel. It's exhales. It is so cool and relaxed. It's the namaste of rosés.