When rosé isn’t just pink

Summer decided to take a back-seat to the Spring that we never received and I couldn’t be happier. A fan of moderate anything, I can do without the intensity of heat that summer in DC brings. So I was more than a little bitter when I was already digging to the back of my closet on the last weekend of April for work clothes that featured paper thin layers balanced with the discretion needed when working in front of people. So this morning when a perfectly cool morning arrived, I hit the outdoors and my mood turned happy. It was helped when the Despacito Remix streamed into my headphones (listen here) setting the perfect tempo for my walk. As is usually the case, a good mood & perfect temperature made me think about wine. And with rosé being my go-to, my mind wandered there. But today is a day for more than just fruity frivolity. Perhaps the latin sensibility of the music spoke to my own Cuban roots and the recurring theme of taking things slowly (depacito translated) with the velvety richness of an endless evening in the islands, took my mind to the Clos Cibonne Tradition. This rosé is a more serious-minded wine–maybe its my spirit wine channeling the complexity found in any decent latin woman. The color is really more pale copper than pink….more like the color of a warm sunset after an endless day. The flavors of this wine produced in a most unusual way — using an unusual choice of the local grape of Tibouren, aged (who has heard of aged rosé?!) under a layer of yeast where it matures, yielding correspondingly complex flavors lightyears beyond the strawberry, cherry fruity frivolity of meant-to-be-drunk fresh “pinks”. Bitter orange, vanilla & spice on a back drop of field strawberry & herb on a slowly pulsing, calm & slightly saline ocean wave of body on the finish. This is a wine for thoughtful food. This is a wine for thoughtful people. And its definitely the wine to savor despacito over a long and slow sunset. At least I have my plans for tonight.