Wine to capture the taste of summer | vintage

Theopetra Estate Xinonmavro Rosé, Meteora, Greece 2022 (£21.75, corkingwines.co.uk) Wine producers tend to fall into two temperamental camps. The first type, the stubborn idealist, doesn't think much about who will buy their wine until it's time to sell it – they make their own well, and only then hope to find customers who share their enthusiasm. The second group is somewhat more pragmatic: they research potential customers in minute detail before they plant a vine, and everything they do in the vineyard and cellar is in the service of what they believe the market requires. When it comes to most rosé wines, the second camp seems to be largely to blame: retail wine ranges are increasingly filled with scores of very pale rosés either from Provence or copies of the very successful model that was perfected in Provence. Maybe the common rosé-drinking public is getting what the common rosé-drinking public wants, but gosh, that makes for some sometimes lackluster wines, a sea of ​​pale, indistinguishable ordinariness where rosé wines with character, like the distinct mandarin orange tingle in Theopetra, the wavy, stone-fruited Greek rose stands out like lighthouses in a safe harbor.

Gerard Bertrand Orange Gold, IGP Pays d'Oc, France 2021 (from £19, ocado.com; hedonism.co.uk) While I believe the majority of the most memorable wines in my life have been made by producers working on 'wine Firstly, at the end of the spectrum, I dare say I drink more wines made by pragmatists. And there's something to be said for a producer who can spot a trend developed by his less clearly business-minded peers and bring it to a wider audience. The south of France is home to a number of palatable mass-market purveyors, and it's no surprise that big names like Jean-Claude Mas and Gerard Bertrand have in recent years added examples of the trendy 'orange' wine style to their offerings. Wine empires with millions of bottles. Bertrand's very elegant Orange Gold, with its subtle tartness, spice and exotic fruit, and the bright peach-coloured Mas Arrogant Frog Organic Orange 2023 (coming to independent dealers in the UK this summer at £13.50) are both delicious drinkable alternatives for me . – Very rosy – as indeed is the sweet apricot bargain of Advini Gros Manseng Vin Orange, Vin de France 2022 (£8.25, Asda).

Celler del Roure Safrà, Valencia, Spain 2021 (from £19.99, quaffwine.com; thefinewinecompany.co.uk; nywines.co.uk) As I've written in this space before, some of the world's most exciting winemaking operations are in The moment occurs in the center of a stylistic Venn diagram where orange wines, deep-hued rosés and bright reds meet. Much of this work is done in the cellars of smaller-scale wine romantics like Pablo Calatoyud, the man behind Valencia's Cellar Rohr, whose gorgeous light reds are a testament to his commitment to reviving undervalued local grape varieties (in this case Mando). ) and the local tradition of making wine in clay amphora. It's a red that drinks like a white, while Les Prunes Blanc de Mando Rosado 2022 (£23.50, Noblegreenwines.co.uk) is, in the words of retailer Noble Green Wines, “a white wine made from red grapes that contain… Turn Pink” – or in other words, a rosé with tremendous character bursting with energy and delicious salty pink grapefruit flavour.

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