We gathered every Australian example of rosé that we could find – with no restrictions on grape variety or varieties used, and no restrictions on winemaking techniques used to create the colour – and set our expert panel the task of finding the wines that compelled the most. All wines were tasted blind, and each panellist named their top six wines. Below are the wines that made the panellists’ top-six selections from the tasting.
Our panel: James Scarcebrook, winemaker, Vino Intrepido; Hayley Williamson, owner and wine buyer, Nina’s Bar & Dining; Anthony Visser, assistant winemaker, Dominique Portet Wines; Bonnie Spain, senior sommelier, Marmelo; Sam Baxter, sommelier, Gerald’s Bar.
This wine appeared in the top six wines of the day for Scarcebrook, Williamson, and Spain. Scarcebrook described it as “clean, dry, focused, and flavourful, with good depth and concentration – I like the texture. Aromatically, it’s more focused and dense than most in the lineup, with blood orange, ripe red fruits teetering on the edge of becoming confected, and a note almost reminiscent of blackcurrant Jolly Rancher candies. It’s generous and soft, fresh and dry, with simply exuberant fresh fruits – really pleasant and drinkable. In short: lovely.” Williamson noted, “This wine shows a pleasant sweetness – like a summer watermelon salad – with rose petals and a touch of strawberry. It’s fresh and effortless, with lifted notes of basil and spearmint, and an interplay of creamy fruit that reminds me of a Weis ice-cream bar. Fun, fresh, and approachable, it’s absolutely screaming to ride along on your next day by the pool.” Spain found “so many layers of fruit! Raspberries and mulberries – a big swathe of ripe, fresh berries. Plenty of fresh acidity, married with a touch of sweet plum, passionfruit floral notes, lemon verbena, and fresh green apple. It’s punchy, with plenty of flavour, so you don’t need to dive into it too much – but if you wanted to unpick the layers of this wine, you’d easily uncover some really wonderful surprises. A wine that just keeps building complexity in the glass and revealing new layers over time.”
Spain and Baxter both selected this wine among their top six from the blind tasting. Spain described “a really nice interplay between bright sweet fruit characteristics and a savoury, herbal drive on the palate. There’s great weight and just the perfect amount of concentration that makes everything feel inviting, but not overwhelming. Pomegranate, watermelon and blood orange stand out on the palate, but the saltiness of the finish is what grabs my attention – I immediately want to pair this either with fatty charcuterie such as capocollo, or a rich lamb dish.” Baxter called it “a savoury dessert in a glass. It evokes beautifully nostalgic childhood memories of huckleberry pie and poached spiced rhubarb, housemade rose water spritzes, and blueberry juice. The palate is filled with poached quinces spiced with cinnamon, with a zested lemon balm acidity and a rosy finish. A bright, fresh rosé that is calling out for Mediterranean fish dishes or salmon – or equally a picnic on a bright spring day.”
Baxter and Visser included this wine in their top six wines of the tasting. Baxter described it as “the retro 1980s in a glass: mould-breaking, punk rock, neon pink, electric. It’s expressive on the nose, bursting at the seams with fleshy ripe blueberry juice, orange blossom, crunchy redcurrants, Turkish Delight and Hubba Bubba bubblegum. The wine mellows out on the palate, showing a crunchy quince and white peach character backed by a white grapefruit–like piercing acidity. It’s textured and layered, with a finish that lingers long after the bottle has disappeared.” Visser noted, “This one’s all about feel and flavour – a warm hug of ripe stone fruits like peach, wrapped up with juicy red berries: strawberries, cherries, maybe even a whisper of raspberry if you’re paying close attention. There’s a gentle hit of sweet spice too, like someone snuck a cinnamon stick into the fruit bowl. It’s beautifully textured, with a mouthfeel that’s soft and plush but still bright and alive. Everything’s in balance – the richness of the fruit, the warmth through the mid-palate, and a fresh line of acidity that keeps the whole thing moving. That acid is like the conductor of the orchestra, pulling everything together and driving those flavours home right where they belong. It’s the kind of wine that doesn’t shout – it sings. Smooth, expressive, and just the right amount of cheeky. Ideal for long lunches that turn into late dinners, or whenever you need something that’s both comforting and just a little bit fancy.”
Spain selected this wine in her top six picks, exclaiming “oh my word, what a savoury delight! At first, I was immediately hit with cracked coriander seed and wattleseed – super-intriguing. A second look revealed a warming ginger spice and lemon balm herbaceousness, rounded out by a sweet almond kernel note on the finish – and just fell in love. I adore rosés with a bit of a punch to them, and this one definitely has enough punch to keep drawing me back in for another taste. Give me a bahn mi, a glass of this, and a sunny day, and I’d be the happiest girl in the world.”
This wine made the top six selections from the tasting for both Visser and Spain. Visser described it as showing up “looking sharp – all gleaming copper and sunshine in the glass – and it smells just as good. Think apricots and strawberries tossed in a bowl with a squeeze of citrus, maybe even a hint of something smoky or flinty in the background, like a BBQ just getting started on a summer evening. It’s bright, fresh, and full of flavour. Juicy red fruits like ripe strawberries and freshly picked peaches lead the charge, balanced perfectly by zesty acidity that keeps everything feeling crisp and clean. There’s a lovely texture to it too – smooth and mouth-filling with just the tiniest grip at the end that makes you instantly want another sip … or glass … or bottle. Everything’s in the right place here – fruit, acid, length, and a little savoury twist to keep things interesting. It’s the kind of wine that feels equally at home at a beach picnic with salty chips and prawns, or poured generously at a long lunch that turns into dinner. Fresh, vibrant, and a little bit cheeky – this is the kind of wine that makes you glad you brought a second bottle. A good example of how approachable Australian Rosé can be.” Spain found “a really zippy, snappy style, which has some wonderful notes of Bravo apple, white strawberry, and cranberry. It’s a more simple style of rosé than others – but its directness and immediacy is a huge part of its appeal. The simple, fresher fruit characteristics have nice length – but it’s the refreshing brightness of the wine’s acidity that keeps the palate clean and makes you want to keep sipping.”
Scarcebrook chose this wine for his top six wines on the day, describing “a bouquet of red liquorice, star anise, elderflower, rosewater and lilacs. High-toned and elegant on the palate – bright cherry and strawberry fruits, as well as some subtle toffee-apple notes. Initially some warmth in the mouth, but then the wine’s subtle texture builds, and there’s enough depth to carry the wine through to the back of the palate. It’s definitely fresh, but the trace of viscosity in this wine makes it more of a sensory experience that cries out for food.”
Visser and Scarcebrook both featured this wine among their top six wines of the day. Visser described “a vibrant blush-pink in the glass, this wine immediately commands attention with its lively hue and intensely fresh aromatics. Bright and lifted, the nose bursts with crushed strawberries, citrus blossom, and a whisper of fresh cream – playful yet precise. On the palate, it’s a joyous rush of flavour – zippy lime and lemon zest provide a racy backbone, while ripe strawberries and a creamy nuance evoke the feeling of summer desserts enjoyed in the shade. There’s a wonderful sense of movement here – a wine that dances across the tongue with energy and verve. Texturally, it strikes a beautiful balance between freshness and generosity. The acidity is citrus-charged and zesty, yet the mouthfeel is rounded and plush, giving the wine both structure and softness. It fills the palate without ever feeling heavy, leaving a clean, lingering finish that beckons another sip. Vibrant, zingy, and impeccably balanced, this is a wine that celebrates freshness while offering depth. Perfectly suited to warm afternoons, seaside lunches, or just about any moment that calls for something both refreshing and refined.” Scarcebrook noted it was “focused and very aromatic – more concentrated than most of the others on the nose, showing guava, mandarin, and cherries. On the palate, it’s really bright and crunchy with a soft finish – both brisk and textural. I can imagine this would be very dangerously drinkable when it’s nice and cold!”
Williamson selected this wine among her top six from the tasting, describing how “the nose bursts with cherry tomato and subtle strawberry, while the palate has a creamy, almost oily texture that creates a pleasing mouthfeel. There’s a gentle chalkiness and a touch of white pepper spice on the finish, with very light leathery tannins alongside herbal notes – reminiscent of basil ice cream and a hint of rosemary. This wine feels quite grown-up to me – I’d love it alongside a ripe yellow peach and heirloom tomato salad, while sitting in the shade on a hot summer’s day.”
Visser chose this wine for his top six selections, noting “a bright copper-salmon hue immediately draws the eye. Aromatically, it’s generous and lifted – ripe peach and sun-warmed apricots mingle with freshly picked strawberries, rising effortlessly from the glass in a soft, enticing bloom. On the palate, there’s a beautiful push and pull between ripe, sweet fruit seen in the aromatics and savoury spice. The texture is enveloping – a silky, mouth-coating feeling that brings weight and presence without losing vibrancy. This texture is balanced gracefully by a clean line of acidity that gives the wine a delicious sense of tension. It’s utterly drinkable yet detailed – there’s charm, balance, and a sense of care in the glass. It’s a wine that speaks in subtle tones, but leaves a lasting impression. The wine shows me precise winemaking abilities in its purity and grace – a fantastic example of an Australian Rosé.”
Spain included this wine in her top six wines on the day, calling it “a bit of a ‘sleeper agent’ here, with a very understated and delicate nose. In a line-up featuring some very strongly perfumed wines, it was really nice to find something that has an unstated purity about it. The nose shows the most subtle hints of fresh red cherry, rosehip and honeysuckle – and on the palate these notes are juxtaposed with a lovely tart rhubarb and cranberry note that balances the fruit sweetness. The minerality and texture of this wine make the palate very moreish and inviting. A perfect example of the virtues of purity over concentration. Pair with friends – although maybe a washed-rind cheese wouldn’t go astray, either.”
Baxter featured this wine among his top six picks, describing it as “a wild ride of a wine – a hot-pink Lamborghini driven by wild ripe boysenberries, yuzu sorbet, and purple Five Gum. Undertones of wild rosemary flowers and wild garlic lace through the juicy, textural palate and add spicy complexity to the beautiful cherry liqueur notes reminiscent of Cherry Heering. It finishes fresh and easy – the kind of wine that will make you thirst for a second bottle.”
This wine made the top six list for both Scarcebrook and Baxter. Scarcebrook found it “initially a bit shy on the nose, this wine opens up to show dried raspberries, wild cherry, pink grapefruit, and quince. On the palate, it’s brisk, but still has some good texture – it’s tight, focused, and lean, yet it also has an openness that I really like. There’s a very subtle savoury note of some raw pasta and watercress on the finish. Both interesting and delicious.” Baxter called it “both a perfect springtime smasher and a food-friendly wine. On the nose, it bursts with just-ripe lychee, white lemon juice, first-of-the-season quince and herbal notes reminiscent of a wild field of daisies and sorrel in spring. The palate is fresh and rigid, bursting with crunchy sorrel flowers, dandelions, white peach, and passionflower. It finishes long and fresh – screaming for sashimi or fresh seafood to clean it up, or a good picnic with some nice brie and Peruvian lomo saltado.”
Baxter selected this wine among his top six wines from the blind tasting, calling it “simply delicious – just like its vibrant colour. The wine explodes onto the nose with sloe berries, ripe lychee, plush blueberry, rosewater, wild passionflower, white pepper, candied huckleberry … it’s layered, complex and concentrated – and that’s just on the nose. The palate bursts with fresh blueberries and purple and pink wildflowers. A bubblegum-like texture is kept in check by an electric acid line that zips across the tongue – the kind of wine where the flavour sticks around long after the third glass has been finished.”
Scarcebrook included this wine in his top six selections from the tasting, describing it as “bright and focused, with a slightly oxidative grassy crunchiness. Pomegranate, raspberry cordial, salty musk and rose petal on the nose. Bright on the palate, not heavy or cloying, with the alcohol gorgeously supporting the fruit notes of red cherries and concentrated watermelon. Texturally, it’s tight and lean, exuberant and dry, with just enough palate weight, while still remaining fresh – a wine of generous flavour that remains thirst-quenching.”
Williamson chose this wine for her top six wines of the tasting, noting it was “elegant and easy, with fresh aromas of strawberry yoghurt and violets. The palate is juicy, with strawberry fruit character and zingy acidity, plus a chewy texture, and a touch of white pepper spice. A savoury edge adds complexity without losing its playful charm – a wine everyone could love, any day of the week.”
This wine appeared in the top six wines on the day for both Visser and Baxter. Visser described it as pouring “a gorgeous copper glow. The aromas are gentle but purposeful, with fresh and dried apricot and peach drifting up as if they’ve been waiting patiently to impress you – and they do. The fruit is pure and clean, nothing overdone – just ripe, golden stone fruit – think ripe peach and fleshy nectarine – doing its thing. The palate follows through with that same balance: rich but not heavy, juicy but not sweet. A lovely line of acidity keeps everything lifted and bright, while the finish leans ever so slightly savoury, adding a grown-up twist to all that fruit-forward charm. It’s the kind of wine that feels perfectly poised – not shouting, not trying too hard, just quietly delicious. Like that friend who always knows exactly what to bring to dinner without even asking. Drink it when the sun’s still up but dinner’s almost ready. It’s got enough zip to keep you refreshed, and enough depth to hold your attention – especially with something salty or a little smoky on the side.” Baxter called it “a perfect example of what might happen if Provence rosé and traditional Italian rosato had a baby. It’s textural, but clean and fresh, driven but pale in colour, expressive but dry. It blooms with Japanese white strawberry, white grapefruit, ripe Meyer lemon, wild pink flowers, and orange-infused Turkish Delight. The palate is bright, bursting with lychee, Granny Smith apple, white peach and essence of roses – complex and so succulent. It finishes fresh, with a rigid and piercing texture, its austerity softened by a tiny kiss of sugar.”
Williamson featured this wine among her top six picks, describing “earthy aromas, married with notes of spearmint and eucalypt, lead into a juicy palate that tastes like freshly opened tinned peaches. There’s a lovely interplay of biscuity umami characters, rose petal notes, and violet florals here – as well as bright, zingy acidity and a hint of ginger spice. With its rich texture and long finish, this is a rosé that manages to marry generosity with refreshment.”
Visser selected this wine in his top six from the tasting, noting it “comes out swinging with lifted aromas of semi-dried apricot and orange peel – bright, golden, and just a little bit wild in the best way. It’s all about flavour here, with those juicy orange fruits like dried peach and dried orange peel front and centre, bursting out of the glass like they’ve got something to prove. There’s a waxy, almost silky texture that gives the wine a lovely richness, but it’s never heavy – thanks to a clean, driving line of acidity that keeps things moving along beautifully. It’s that perfect mix of lush and lively, like a fruit tart with just enough citrus zest to keep you going back for ‘one more bite’. There’s a quiet confidence to this wine but it’s full of character. Bright, textured, and full of charm – it’s like sunshine in a glass, with just enough bite to keep things interesting.”
Scarcebrook chose this wine for his top six wines of the day, describing it as “super pale and dry, with some cuddly softness to it. Quite subtle and complex on the nose, with a quietly assured aromatic profile – jasmine and violets, white strawberries and lemon sherbet. It’s bolder on the palate than the aromatics would suggest, with solid red citrus notes of blood orange and pink grapefruit through the palate, married with just a hint of nectarine skin. A wine of intriguing contrasts.”
Williamson included this wine among her top six selections, noting “aromas of biscuits, orange skin, red apple, and cherry. The palate follows with juicy red apple, a savoury touch of tomato and umami character, and white pepper spice. The texture is nicely chewy, and lively acidity carries the wine down the palate to a long finish. A fascinating wine, and perhaps not for everyone – but one I’d happily put on the table alongside a Malaysian curry and warm roti bread.”
Spain chose this wine for her top six wines from the blind tasting, noting “I don’t know if this is a style of rosé that most others would like – but being a lover of very savoury styles of wine, this really speaks to me. It has these distinctive notes of golden beetroot, sumac and sweet paprika, the savouriness balanced out by fruity notes of loganberry and blood orange, and hint of citrus on the finish reminiscent of Sumo mandarin. I love its vibrancy and earthen edge. Fresh summer vegetables are going to be your friend when it comes to pairing this wine – especially sweet tomatoes.”
Williamson selected this wine in her top six picks from the tasting, describing “a spicy, strawberry-led nose, with peach skin, yellow nectarine, and pretty rose-petal notes. The palate shows bright, bouncy acidity alongside earthy umami depth, a touch of pepper, and a little blueberry note. This is slightly edgy for Australian rosé – and all the more interesting for it.”
Few wine styles are quite as easygoing and welcoming as rosé, which rarely commands the pomp and puffery regularly afforded to the great red and white wines of the world, and therefore hardly ever gets hung up on being too serious. Instead, it maintains a broad, welcoming smile. It says: ‘Drink me.’ It says: ‘Relax, have fun.’
Prices for rosé generally follow suit – while a small handful of French examples and some other famous international outliers can command serious prices, especially by the time they land in Australia, the vast majority of the world’s rosé wines are priced democratically. A flood of bottles of rosy-tinged sunshine from France’s Provence region have been exported to all corners of the globe in their legion, in turn fashioning the expectations of drinkers that rosé should be pale, fresh, bone-dry, and relatively simple – the quintessential ‘poolside pounder’. But is that all there is to rosé?
While there are a multitude of ways to make wine pink, each of those winemaking methods stems from a simple fact of wine grape physiology. For the vast majority of red wine grape varieties, all of the colour molecules (or, if you’d like to get technical, ‘anthocyanins’) reside in the skin, not the flesh – which means that the juice inside each grape is pale and colourless. During the course of normal red wine fermentation, those anthocyanins come off the skins as they sit in the juice, aided by the temperature generated as yeasts convert sugars to alcohol, which turns the wine red. But if you can separate the juice from the skins without the skins coming into contact with the juice, you can make a white wine from those red grapes. So, to make a pink wine, all you need to do is reduce the amount of time the juice spends on the skins before or during fermentation to achieve your desired hue. (It’s worth mentioning here that a small number of so-called ‘teinturier’ varieties that have both red flesh and dark skins exist – but even these can be turned into darkly-hued rosés by swiftly removing the juice from the skins, as renowned Barossa Valley producer Rockford does with the teinturier variety alicante bouschet.)
While the overall theory is pretty simple, in practice there’s an enormous range of different ways to make a wine pink – and not every method will work for any given grape variety or growing region. The most common of these methods is direct pressing, where the juice picks up the tiniest hint of blush colour as it courses over the skins of crushed grapes as it is pressed. As the pressing process continues, or as the winemaker increases pressure in the press, the juice gets darker – so timing the end of the pressing correctly is vital for success with this technique. The second major technique to make pink wine is to drain off some of the juice from an active red wine ferment before all of the colour has leeched out of the skins – a process called ‘saignée’, after the French word for ‘bleeding’. Beyond those, a panoply of other techniques can come into play. Grape varieties with pinkish skins, such as pinot gris, can become pink wines by leaving them on skins. In Champagne-style traditional method production, white wines are usually made pink by blending in a dash of red wine. (This is relatively rare for still wines, although some exceptions exist – perhaps most famously the highly collectible ‘grand vin’ rosé of Lebanon’s Château Musar.) And in the case of Spain’s traditional clarete wines, red and white grapes are fermented together. For avant-garde producers the world over, including Australia, there’s a near-infinite array of ways to make wine pink.
Because dark-berried grapes have been around since before humans were turning them into wine – the general consensus amongst grapevine scientists is that the berries of Vitis vinifera were originally red, with white grapes developing later as colour mutations – it’s therefore impossible to determine when or where the first rosé wine might have been made. Indeed, some argue that the first wines ever made would have been more akin to what we call rosés than they would have been to contemporary styles of red wine, whose colour has been beefed up via centuries’ worth of collective winemaking experience. Owing to this long history of making, and the range of red grape varieties grown around the world, the global rosé landscape has therefore historically been an incredibly diverse one, with wines being made in a rainbow of pinkish hues ranging from ultra-pale onion skin through to almost-red. Despite this, for many Australian wine consumers, good rosé means only one thing – a delicate shade of pink, the paler the better. To understand why this is the case, we need to turn to the relatively recent ascent of France’s Provence region.
Until relatively recently, Australian rosés were often sweet, and mostly varied between luridly fluorescent tones and somewhat sombre dark hues. Winemaker William Downie, speaking at our first Deep Dive panel on rosé in 2019, put it succinctly. “When I was judging at the Melbourne Wine Show … [rosé] was all toilet-cleaner pink. In 2004, there was no rosé that was that colour,” he said, pointing to a pale pink example in glass. “And there were none that were dry!” Back then, Australian rosé was almost exclusively a secondary product designed to claw back some revenue – often a means to use up sub-par fruit from young vines, lesser sites, or poorly selected clones. Either that, or it was an off-cut of red wine production – by employing the saignée method, winemakers could bump up the ratio of skins to juice in a red wine ferment, beefing up the colour and tannin content, and then sell off the prettily pink leftovers for a little extra financial liquidity while they waited for the red to mature in oak. (For this reason, winemakers and rosé aficionados alike often look down their noses at saignée-method rosés – although many high-quality examples where the rosé isn’t a byproduct can be found today.) There were exceptions, of course: Gary Farr made some significant statements with saignée-method rosés during his legendary tenure at Bannockburn Vineyards; Turkey Flat and Charles Melton turned out highly regarded pink wines; Eastern Peake’s mould-breaking ‘Pinot Taché’ debuted in 1995; and Julian Castagna made a more aspirational statement with his ‘Allegro’ in 1998, which came with a price tag that was unheard of for rosé at the time. But, by and large, Australian rosés were were wines of necessity – or, worse, wines of opportunity – and they were often burdened with the perception that they had to be sweet.
That perception, in turn, had been fuelled by the wine that first turned consumers around the world on to the joys of pink wine: Mateus. One of the first commercially produced rosé brands, Mateus was developed in 1942 by Fernando Van Zeller Guedes and Eugène Hellis, who were seeking to find new markets for Portuguese grapes and wines in a world disrupted by World War II. (While Portugal remained strictly neutral in this conflict, sales to its traditional main export market, England, had plunged owing to rationing.) With its distinctive bottle shape – modelled on the canteens used by soldiers in World War I – and its sweet and fruity taste, Mateus was an immediate global hit. This one brand constituted nearly 40% of Portugal’s entire wine industry at its peak, received celebrity endorsements from both Elton John and Queen Elizabeth II, and spawned a legion of imitators within Portugal and elsewhere – nearly all of them wines of expedience, their harsher edges buffed off by a kiss of residual sugar. It therefore didn’t take long for rosé wines to acquire a bad reputation – here and elsewhere. As the fabled American wine importer Kermit Lynch puts it, “When I opened my business, and when I grew up in wine, rosé had a terrible reputation. In the serious wine community, people did not drink rosé. It wasn’t considered real wine; it was just something made from the rotten grapes that could not go into the red.”
“Rosé had a terrible reputation. In the serious wine community, people did not drink rosé. It wasn’t considered real wine; it was just something made from the rotten grapes that could not go into the red.”
In his travels through the southern French region of Provence, Lynch found a rosé producer whose wines were the antithesis of Mateus: Domaine Tempier, from the village of Bandol. Tempier’s wines were and remain a delicate, pale colour, and are bone-dry. While it took Lynch some time to establish Tempier’s reputation from when he first brought their wines to the USA in 1976, by the late ’90s a portion of the wine world’s cognoscenti had become aware of the delights of Provence rosé in general. Around this time, the region seriously leaned in to rosé production, establishing a research institute dedicated to rosé wines in 1999, and developing an industry that went on to become a juggernaut in the 2010s. Exports of Provence rosé have grown over 500% over the past fifteen years, both fuelled by and in turn fuelling a global fad for pink wine. Currently 91% of Provence’s wine production is dedicated to rosé – mostly made from grenache, syrah, and mourvèdre grapes – and it makes approximately 6% of the world’s rosé in total. Its stylistic impact has been even larger than these numbers suggest, with a generation of wine drinkers worldwide internalising Provence’s message that rosé wines should only be pale in colour and bone-dry. And while the very best rosés of Provence – such as Tempier, Clos Cibonne, or Château de Pibarnon – certainly aren’t lacking in flavour and interest, for many Provencal rosé producers and consumers those considerations come in at a distant third place on the list of priorities.
Given the key role that Provence’s rosés had in the global shift away from the luridly coloured and lightly sweet pink wines exemplified by Mateus, it’s appropriate that the winemakers who really helped shift the narrative around rosé in Australia are both French transplants. When Dominique Portet founded his eponymous winery in the year 2000, after many years at Taltarni, he produced what many regard as Australia’s first properly pale and dry pink wine. The following year, after landing at Harcourt’s Sutton Grange, Gilles Lapalus intently joined Portet in the battle to make and promote the Provencal style in Australia – while also expanding its possibilities by releasing both an entry-level rosé and a more serious reserve version, as well as a flor-raised rosé reminiscent of fino Sherry that was truly ahead of its time.
The combined efforts of these two champions of Provençal subtlety didn’t have immediate effects, but before long the shift in Australian wine was overwhelming: the neon hues were dialled down, and the palates tipped to the drier end of the scale. While a small number of producers still make the kind of rosé Australians would have recognised in the 1980s – Rockford’s alicante bouschet a prime example amongst them – the average Australian rosé these days has been designed with intent to be pale, dry, and thirst-quenching. That design starts from the ground up, literally, with viticulture being fine-tuned to maximise both flavour and freshness at the slightly lower levels of ripeness that this style of rosé demands. And Australian wine drinkers are more than happy with this change – rosé consumption here has grown by an average of 13% per year over the past five years, even as wine consumption overall has dipped.
“Rosé was all toilet-cleaner pink. In 2004, there was no rosé that was that pale pink colour. And there were none that were dry!”
While this is definitely a welcome shift from the rosés of yore, it also means that there can now be a certain orthodoxy to Australian rosé, especially when it’s produced at scale. Another way to put it: much of the rosé we’re now drinking can be considered a ‘beverage’ rather than an ambitious wine. There’s a relentless focus at the consumer end on paleness of colour as a signifier of quality – a focus that is aided and abetted by makers who place their wines into clear glass bottles for maximum display impact at retail. (Somewhat ironically, the delicate and fresh aromatics of most rosé wines makes the category one of the worst candidates for this treatment, as exposure to UV light – which is partially filtered by dark green and amber bottles, but passes unimpeded through clear ones – can rapidly generate unpleasant aromas of boiled cabbage, rotten eggs, or stinky cheese in wine.) So while some Australian makers are happy to add a little bit of fruitiness and generosity to the Provençal template, by and large the makers flying the flag for more serious and structured examples – ones that might cost a little more than we’re used to paying for rosé, and that might be a shade or two darker, too – are the smaller, independent makers.
Of course, not every rosé needs to aspire to seriousness. Although there are many notable exceptions, there is a functional quality to much of the world’s rosé – joyously functional, but functional nonetheless. Provence’s current domination over the pink wines of the world can be chalked up to many factors, but key among them is the lifestyle pitch – pale, dry rosé served ice-cold is the wine best suited to the sun-drenched languor of that beautiful part of the world. Try finding promotional notes for Provence rosé brands that don’t mention azure waters or the sun (always the sun). There aren’t many. Provence’s Mediterranean coast, the Côte d’Azur, is a place of infectious glamour, of good times, and of tantalisingly obscene displays of affluence. People want a part of that. You can see why the fine wine bit sits a little behind that combination of sparkling blue water, gleaming sun and the blinding impact of reflected riches. And you can see why Australian producers would want to channel that glamour in their own wines and sales pitches.
Look past the ‘beverage’ rosés, though, and you’ll find that Australia is blessed with an extraordinary diversity of rosé styles – a shadow movement that has blossomed apace with the explosion of bottles within the Provençal paradigm. Interest in climate-apt varieties means that it’s not hard to find Australian rosés made from tempranillo, sangiovese, and nero d’avola – not to mention more recherché varieties such as mencía, graciano, or cinsault. (Indeed, Australia’s first varietal mencía wine, from Oliver’s Taranga, was a rosé.) As interest in pinot gris/grigio has exploded, a smaller market for pink-hued, grippily textural ramato-style grigios has likewise developed. The freewheeling nature of the natural wine scene has blurred the line between ‘dark rosé’ and ‘light red’, as well as allowing for a swathe of experimentation in production, such as the use of kvevri in Cobaw Ridge’s ‘Il Pinko’. Growing interest in non-Provençal pink wine traditions has seen similar techniques adopted here, as in Dune’s ‘Maspalomas’, a wine explicitly modelled on the clarete wines of Spain. And the domination of imported rosé wines at the higher end of the market has inspired local pink wines of similar ambition. Marcell Kustos of Lvdo argues that “we didn’t have a rosé that gets people excited at every release, and that section of the wine list was heavily import-dominated. I also thought there was an opportunity to champion Australian rosé and make a serious, complex version that is worth placing in the cellar for a few years for increased drinking pleasure. That’s how my ambitious goal to make Australia’s first collectable rosé was born.”
“We didn’t have a rosé that gets people excited at every release, and that section of the wine list was heavily import-dominated. I also thought there was an opportunity to champion Australian rosé and make a serious, complex version that is worth placing in the cellar for a few years.”
Provence hasn’t been resting on its laurels, either. While there has been an explosion of prestige rosé bottling, squarely aimed at the ultra-luxury market and designed to service the mega-yachts of celebrities and oligarchs, there has also been a quieter push into exploring the possibilities for Provence rosés to be wines of terroir. Melbourne-based wine importer Felix Riley founded his wholesale business, Felixir, on the bedrock of French rosé, and he’s been closely watching developments there. “The Provence Wine Council [Conseil Interprofessionnel des Vins de Provence], who have some hardcore research divisions in marketing as well as winemaking, conducted an experiment where they vinified thirteen plots of Grenache from all over Provence, made exactly the same way, and there was a staggering colour difference,” he says. “This was a game changer for me in showing how rosé can reflect site. Sure, not to the same terroir-porn levels of Burgundy’s crus, but it shows the style stands above mere winemaking process.”
While the broader region certainly marks rosé with individual character here in Australia, the dive into terroir-expressive rosé is perhaps in its infancy. But that leap into ‘serious’ wine territory is not holding Australian rosé back from being one of our most exciting categories, with a panoply of styles that are shattering barriers and developing in ever more interesting ways. Yes, rosé can be just a ‘beverage’ – but it also can be a stepping-stone between white and red at the dinner table, and the canvas on which Australian makers experiment with new techniques and varieties. More than that, that Pantone swatchbook of shades has now fanned out to nestle up to whites and light reds, not to mention offering a foil for skin-contact whites and amber wines – part of a vinous rainbow that means Australian wine drinkers are spoiled for choice.
Our panel: James Scarcebrook, winemaker, Vino Intrepido; Hayley Williamson, owner and wine buyer, Nina’s Bar & Dining; Anthony Visser, assistant winemaker, Dominique Portet Wines; Bonnie Spain, senior sommelier, Marmelo; Sam Baxter, sommelier, Gerald’s Bar.
Baxter kicked off the discussion by noting the breadth of styles present in the line-up. “You can make a rainbow out of all the colours and all the different styles – from a very pale orange all the way up to these almost chilled red, funky, really rich and tertiary expressions that will be champions with food,” he said. “It’s a very interesting category. And it’s good to see a different and diverse range of wines – not just all salmon pinks, or all sweet styles.”
Talk of sweeter styles of rosé got the panel onto the topics of residual sugar and ripeness – both something of a bogeyman for most Australian rosé consumers, whose palate preferences run lean and dry. Of the wines that had notable residual sugar, Williamson said: “I think it was more that the sugar wasn’t balanced with the acidity. They weren’t actually sweet – it was just that the sugar was what you could actually see in them.” Baxter argued that any amount of residual sugar shouts its presence in a lineup dominated by bone-dry wines. “It sticks out there like a sore thumb in these kinds of brackets where you’re like, ‘Okay, dry, dry, dry – holy shit, that’s a kiss of sugar there’.”
“With some of them, I was like, ‘That’s too acidic and dry’. With these you have to ask, ‘Are you trying to make a white wine?'"
For Spain, the perception of sweetness was also linked to ripeness and palate weight: “There were a couple of examples where I think the fruit ripeness as well maybe went a little bit too far,” she said. “They went too much into that really tropical, sweet – they weren’t sweet on the palate, but everything about them felt sweet – that tinned mango and really sweet overripe pineapple character. Sometimes I don’t hate that character, but often it didn’t keep everything in check.” On the other hand, she also found that certain examples pushed the envelope too far in the direction of under-ripeness. “With some of them, I was like, ‘That’s too acidic and dry’. They had that real lime-y character – almost an underripe lime. With these you have to ask, ‘Are you trying to make a white wine?’.”
Visser, who currently helps to make one of Australia’s premier examples of the bone-dry and pale Provençal style of rosé at Dominique Portet Wines, found the diversity of winemaking techniques on display refreshing. “I would want to consider myself a rosé purist – Provence ’til I die,” he said. “But actually being able to compare those rosés next to some people trying some really cool things that I haven’t seen before, that was kind of exciting. I probably didn’t love those wines as much as the others initially, but just seeing these different expressions or styles … there were a few that were like, ‘Okay, that’s interesting – it’s something new’. So there’s definitely something for everyone out there as well – because Provence-style rosé isn’t for everyone, as much as I would wish.”
“There’s definitely something for everyone out there – because Provence-style rosé isn’t for everyone, as much as I would wish.”
Scarcebrook saw a continuity between the darker, richer rosés in the line-up and the pink wine traditions from other parts of the Old World. “Some of the wines almost moved into a traditional rosato or rosado spectrum,” he said. “In Italy and Spain they didn’t necessarily have as much of a tradition or a history of making rosés in terms of the modern context – instead, they would have what we now might call very light reds that they would chill. You don’t see them labelled as rosatos or rosados much any more, but there are still examples of them. Those wines move into that borderline between rosé and chilled red – what chilled red is kind of becoming.” Spain concurred, noting that not all Southern French rosé was ultra-pale and light, either: “There were a couple of nods as well to Bandol and Tavel – the lesser-known rosé regions of France, where they make those bigger, almost chilled red styles of wine,” she said.
Baxter welcomed the presence of these bigger, more structured rosés, but argued that they weren’t necessarily in tune with the market. “When you’re looking at the Australian consumer market in general, and especially going into restaurants, you will find that people often say, ‘I just want a light dry rosé’,” he said. “Unless they are specifically wine nerds, you typically won’t get people saying, ‘I want Tavel. I want Bandol. I want a rich, round style of rosé.’ It’s always, ‘I want Provence’. I think it’s changing from a winemaker perspective rather than from a consumer perspective – which will also inevitably kind of lead on and trickle into restaurants. You’re already seeing it now with labels like ‘Il Pinko’ and Eastern Peake’s ‘Pinot Taché’ and stuff like that – they’re already getting on by the glass, and really pushing that kind of mindset a little further.” For him, the suitability of these more structured rosés with food is something that helps change mindsets: “If you put those darker, richer rosés in front of guests and go, ‘Just try it with the food’, they’ll order a second glass – or even a third, or even a bottle.”
“If you put those darker, richer rosés in front of guests and go, ‘Just try it with the food’, they’ll order a second glass – or even a third, or even a bottle.”
Scarcebrook noted that while these richer styles may perform well in restaurant settings, most rosé wine is not consumed in the presence of a sommelier who has curated the pairing in order to expand diners’ horizons. “More wine is purchased in retail than restaurants,” he said. “There’s a reason why rosés are almost exclusively bottled in flint [clear glass] – because so much of the purchase is in the eyes, and people are predominantly choosing it based on how pale it is, and what kind of colour it is.” He also noted the difficulties for Australian producers to compete in a domestic market that is awash with imported rosé from Provence: “The amount of rosé just from Provence that is being imported is huge,” he said. “In hospitality, I’m sure that a lot of customers are coming in and saying, ‘Oh, I want I only to drink French rosé’. That’s just a fact. So to even have a chance in that kind of context – in that sort of competitive environment – the general idea would be to make something that approximates that style and hope that it’s good enough that a venue says, ‘I’m going to get behind this producer. I don’t want to have French rosé, and if people ask for it, I’ll say – no, this is better’.”
Williamson argued that the commercial imperatives involved in making rosé in Australia ensure that the category represents exceptional value. “On my list, you can buy a white wine that’s $22 a glass, or you can buy a rosé for $12,” she said. “That’s a big reason why people go for rosé.” She added that the biggest challenge for Australian makers was that consumers don’t necessarily know what to expect from Australian rosé: “The reason a lot of people go for French is because they know stylistically what is it’s going to be like,” she said. “And it’s clear from the tasting today that, in Australia, no one’s doing the same thing. There’s no way to say exactly what what kind of Australian rose is going to taste like. So how do you combat that? It’s a long road for people to learn about that – I guess you have to have somebody holding your hand.”
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