Wines of the week: August 17

This week, I'm drinking: rosé wines

I’ve been planning to run a round-up of rosé wines for some time, but two things have held me back: 1) rosé is associated with sunshine, something that we have had very little of recently. 2) I don’t like rosé very much. It veers between cloying or tasteless or, worst of all, tastelessly cloying. It’s so easy to sell that there’s little incentive for producers to strive for excellence.

I suspect for many it’s a lucrative way to get rid of inferior grapes. Nevertheless, summer does fi nally seem to be here as I write (though what it will be like when you read this is another matter) and there are some good rosés out there.

Domaine Grangette Rosé 2011, £7.50, C2C Wines: www.c2cwines.co.uk

My aunt Marianne introduced me to this producer. Made from ultra-rare, Piquepoul Noir, it’s stuffed with fl avour. Like the better-known white Piquepoul, this smells of the sea, but is the prettiest onion skin colour, a shade darker than a Provençal rosé, and the taste is of herbs and nectarines with a touch of tannin.

Azienda Agricola Col del Mondo DOC Cerasuolo 2011, £11: www.tengreenbottles.com

More strawberries here, but these are big, plump sweet ones. This is a rich, almost overwhelming, wine held in check by some balancing acidity; a good one to drink with melon and Parma ham.

Frappato Fondo Filara 2011, £8.50, The Wine Society: www.thewinesociety.com

Not a rosé but a Sicilian red so light and drinkable that it seems hardly like a wine at all. It tastes exactly like crushed, fresh blueberries with a hint of smoke so that you know it’s for grown-ups. It’s my wife’s wine of the year.