The blog is mostly off today for the Memorial Day holiday, but will be back tomorrow with our usual features. Until then, John Fogerty in a 2005 live performance of “Lodi” (courtesy of Mi NaNi at YouTube) — maybe the best song ever written about rock ‘n roll as a job: “If I only had a dollar, for every song I’ve sung/And every time I’ve had to play/While people sat there drunk.” Takes a lot of the shine off the sex and drugs bit, doesn’t it?
And who knew Lodi would one day come to mean wine country?
The annual Memorial Day and rose post is one of the Wine Curmudgeon’s favorites, a post that has appeared every year since I started writing the blog. And why not? Rose is more popular than ever before (for which I will take some small credit), and it’s the quintessential great cheap wine: tasty and food friendly. It’s almost impossible to find a badly made $10 rose.
The blog ?s rose primer discusses styles, why rose is dry, and how it gets its pink color. The blog ?s rose category offers more suggestions, and the following will get you started for this year’s Memorial Day and rose extravaganza:
? Bodegas Palacio Rioja Milflores 2013 ($11, purchased, 13.5%): Quality Spanish rose that overcomes goofy bottle hype — extolling the “fruit and flower-filled fields of Rioja” — to offer excellent value. Crisp and aromatic, with some cranberry fruit and even a little orange on the finish.
? Penya C tes Catalanes Rose 2012 ($9, purchased, 13.5%): One more in a long succession of solid, winning roses from the south of France, this from the Roussillion and made with mostly grenache. Look for some strawberry fruit, but also a stony finish.
? Mulderbosch Cabernet Sauvignon Ros 2013 ($10, sample, 12.8%): This South African rose is another example of terrific $10 rose. It seems to have lots more strawberry fruit this year, though it’s still dry. But I’m guessing that much of that fruit will become more integrated in the wine as it ages in the bottle.
