A 2008 Rose'

The weekend finished yesterday with a good party for Father's Day and a 90th birthday celebration for my step mother. Since the menu was primarily hamburgers and hot dogs, and since the temperatures were near 90 degrees again, it was time for more rose'.

This time it was a 2008 Domaine de la Petite Cassagne from the Costieres de Nimes region of southern France. Unlike the salmon and copper color of Saturday's rose' this one was the color of cranberry juice. The taste was mostly strawberries with some gravelly underpinnings. There was also a pleasing vegetative or herby character to this wine and after a brief discussion and short session of brainstorming by several of us we finally decided there was sweet basil in this wine. Strange, but it was there.

There was good acidity and a nice, but short, finish with just a tiny hint of sweetness at the very end. Nice effort, a good wine, but I preferred the Saturday wine discussed below because I liked the bone dry finish on that wine. This was another of the $9 rose's from the local market and checked in at 13.5% alcohol.

There was a surprise disadvantage to the color because there were some young children present. A three year old picked up my glass and took a sip of the wine (not something I recommend for several years) after calling it pretty. There was a big smile on his face even though he only got one sip. I'm sure he slept well last night, but then again that probably had as much to do with playing hard as it did with his sip of wine.