Summer is here. The skies are blue, the Jacaranda, that amazing purple and wine is increasingly pink. Yes, not just because of the season either. Australia is waking up to the delights of rose. Displays are piling up in bottle shops across the land. I can remember when mineral water took off it this country. People said it never would – why pay for something that comes out of the tap? – but it has. We now spend some $700 million on bottled water a year. Likewise, and thank the lord, so has chorizo, which I like even more than pink wine. But while rose has become more popular, I’m not sure it has improved. It’s often too fruity, even sweet. A lot of the imported ones can be acidic and harsh. And they all have a scary ability to leave you feeling far from in the pink.

But I have finally tasted a rose worth shouting about, it was like drinking liquid silk satin. Delicate, smooth, but strong. It was Rimauresqu 2016, Cotes de Provence Cru Classe and I was very sad when we came to the end of the bottle. Decanter gave it 97 points in a recent tasting.

I’ve drunk a fair bit of rose in my time. A lot of it in the south of France, out of massive bottles the waiters balance on their shoulders. I’ve had good ones (Bandol springs to mind) bad ones and indifferent ones, but I’ve never come across anything like this.

It doesn’t really belong on this blog – it’s about $35 a bottle (from Castlecrag Cellars) – but you have a right to know, us Castlecragians can’t keep it all to ourselves.

I bought it in a mixed half dozen which included a particularly good 2016 Cotes du Rhone Villages from Bernard Schurr. It’s an organic wine, 50:50 shiraz and Grenache, 13% alcohol. The vines grow on the barren plains of the Plan de Dieu (odd that God’s plains are barren) and have been since the 14^thcentury. This was closer to the $20 mark and the best thing I can say about it is that it reminded me of one of the best Chateauneuf du Papes I’ve ever had – a Chateau Rayas, second wine Pignan – or it might be the other way around, I tried it over 30 years ago! It had the same intensity, richness and complexity.  If I remember rightly, Pignan was made very traditionally. Perhaps being organic helps.

Chateauneuf du Papes, the 14^thcentury and Plan de Dieu reminded me of a good book which deals with Popes and the problems that began around then, including the challenge of having three Popes at the same time; The Battle for Christendom: The Council of Constance, 1415, and the struggle to unite against Islam. The author, FR WELSH, is my father and a much better writer.

I would be happy drinking the that mixed dozen forever more. It contained a fine chardonnay from Paringa Estate, their basic PE, which has just the right balance of fruit and wood: “the fruit was whole bunch pressed, transferred to barrel on solids and barrel fermented in seasoned French oak (approximately 1/4 indigenous yeast). Oak maturation took place on lees for the following 10 months before bottling” say they;a bottle of Billecart Salmon and a very cheap French Pinot that wasn’t great but, still had something going for it – the Renault 4 of wines.

Hope you get to drink something nice. Happy Christmas everyone.