'Wine,' according to Harry Eyres's winningly readable Bluffer's Guide to this most complex of subjects, 'comes in three basic colours: red, which ranges from purple to light brown; white, which is usually pale yellow; and ros¿, which is to be avoided.' Many wine buffs would agree with him. They'd rather drink a schooner of fortified wine than be seen with a glass of something pink.
It's true that drinking ros¿ can feel like a compromise, a sort of vinous Third Way. You get the acidity and freshness (if you're lucky) of a white wine and, in varying degrees of concentration, something of the colour, fruit character and tannin of a red. But that's not necessarily a bad thing. At certain times, and in certain places, ros¿ wines are ideal, especially with food. The drawback is that those times and places tend to coincide with strong sunshine, never this country's climatic strong suit.
Too often, ros¿s are holiday wines that fail to make the transition from a beach by the Med to a back garden in south London. But that doesn't invalidate pink wines as a style. Actually, I say pink, but ros¿ wines can vary dramatically in colour. Some of them are darker than pale reds, while, at the other end of the spectrum, you find wines that are only faintly tinted. Stylistically, too, there's a lot of variation, from fruity and full-bodied to elegant and ethereal (or dilute if you're an unreconstructed red wine drinker).
Most ros¿s are made in one of two ways, and this has an important bearing on their taste and appearance. In the first case, they are made like a white wine; that's to say the grapes are crushed and/or pressed, then fermented without their skins. In the second, essentially a truncated red wine fermentation, the bubbling juice is left in contact with the skins for a few days, then run off into its own vat. This has a two-pronged effect: it concentrates the red wine in the original vat and provides a ros¿ with plenty of colour and oomph. As so-called 'saign¿es' have grown in popularity, due to the fashion for more concentrated reds, so the quality of ros¿ wines has improved.
There's only one important rule to follow when selecting a ros¿, rosato, rosado or blush and that's to know your grape varieties. Those that make variable or even poor reds (Carignan, Cabernet Franc and Pinot Noir) should be avoided, while those that are reliable, first division grapes (Cabernet Sauvignon, Tempranillo, Syrah and Merlot) tend to produce pretty good ros¿s too. I'd put Grenache somewhere in the middle. I can't tell you which wines to buy, because one man (or woman's) Day-Glo stunner is another's red wine manqu¿. My favourite ros¿s, in no particular order, are produced in Navarra, Tavel, Costi¿res de N¿mes, Bordeaux (believe it or not), California (the dry stuff, as opposed to gooey, sickly sweet 'White' Zinfandel or blush) and Australia. I can't guarantee that the sun will shine while you're drinking them, but can I promise you that, at their best, ros¿ wines are incomparable.
and beer...
If all goes well, Britain's independent brewers should be breaking open their best barrels of Hambleton Nightmare and Summer Lightning for a major piss-up this week - for Gordon Brown is tipped to do something quite unthinkable for a Chancellor of the Exchequer. In Wednesday's budget, he is expected to slash the duty that breweries have to pay on ale, beer and stout. But only for smaller beer-makers. The cutback, Treasury officials have made clear, will not affect the big boys, who will still have to go on paying the full excise monty. Progressive beer duty is only to be for the tiddlers. Nevertheless, the message seems clear: there is going to be cheap beer for the workers. New Labour has regained its socialist heart, it seems.
In fact, the aim of progressive beer duty has little to do with reducing the cost of a pint, and is instead designed to throw a lifeline to small, independent breweries, from Harviestoun's in Scotland, to St Peter's in Suffolk; from Batemans in Lincolnshire to Hambleton, in Yorkshire. Many are run as one-man outfits and have been struggling for years to compete against the major brewery chains. 'Marketing is incredibly important if you want to promote and sell your beer these days,' says Nick Stafford, proprietor of Hambleton Brewery, near Thirsk. 'And that is not cheap. So we need help and progressive beer duty should provide that.'
The problems facing small breweries - sometimes called micro-breweries - stem from the crippling excise that is levied on British beer. While their French counterparts pay only about 4p on each pint they make, UK brewers have to fork out 27p. Hence progressive beer duty. 'Essentially, the smaller the brewery, the less their excise rate would be ,' said Iain Loe, of Camra, the Campaign for Real Ale. 'The smallest - the ones that make only a few barrels a week would perhaps pay only half the full rate. The larger the brewer the more their excise rate. It would rise on a gradual, sliding scale.' Camra officials have only had Treasury hints that progressive beer duty - which has been a glint in campaigners' beer mugs for years - will be introduced this year. Nevertheless, they are confident. 'Put it this way, we will be bitterly disappointed if we don't get it,' said Loe. Savings made through Progressive Beer Duty - which could reach £35 a barrel for smaller outfits - would not be passed on to customers, however. 'It will help us buy new equipment, or hire more staff to increase production,' says Stafford. 'Even better, it will allow us to buy our own pubs.' This last point is crucial. Rural public houses - which were already facing major economic headaches - suffered grievously during last year's Foot and Mouth epidemic. 'Really, if you are going to run a micro-brewery, you need to have at least one guaranteed outlet for your beers,' said Stafford. 'Without one, you are struggling. That means that with the money we save on duty - and that could reach several hundred pounds a week - we could buy a pub or two, doing both ourselves, and the local community, a big favour. A lot is riding on Mr Brown, in other words.'
Robin McKie
