Is It Dry?
June 28th, 2020
It's the number one question you get about Rosé - is it dry?
Sometimes it's the color that makes people hesitant (it's a half-shade darker than the palest salmon pink!!).
Sometimes it's because it's not Provençal.
Sometimes it's because it's not French period.
Sometimes it's because it's standing there, in a tall, skinny, tapered bottle...
...and if that tall, skinny, tapered bottle is from Germany, the hesitance can often become an impenetrable force field of reluctance.
Today's wines, the downright lovely Rosé Trocken and Rosé Secco (get it? eh, eh? Rosecco...) of Stein from Germany's most famous region, the Mosel, are both elegant, focused, mineral, and finish bone dry...even if they also exhibit all of the 'Attributes for Uncertainty' that I mentioned above.
Ulli Stein is one of German Wine's most freewheeling and lovable personalities. While his commitment to making his own life difficult through his cultivation of abandoned and/or old, alarmingly steep vineyards may seem like concerns of a more serious man, his contagious spirit permeates every element of the Ulli experience, right down to the labels/names of his wines.
A perfect example being the Rosé Secco 2019, a charmingly refreshing pink bubbly made mostly of Pinot Noir with about 20% of Merlot and Cabernet Sauvignon, of all things. Everything about it, from the clear bottle, to the beer cap, to the name (which literally means Dry Pink, but is also a play on words - Rosecco) pretty much screams 'Enjoy me!'...and enjoy it you will, that I can promise. The fresh, pink fruit flavors offer plenty of juicy, quenching character...but...is it dry?
While there are a few types of perceptible 'dryness' in my book, when it comes to non-red wines, it usually comes down to some combo of acidity and minerality that leaves people with the notion that a wine is 'dry'. While I certainly wouldn't peg the Secco as a wine of driving acidity, there is no doubt that the steeply-pitched slate soils have certainly endowed it with quite the mineral personality...and a firm, gravelly one, at that.
All of that lovely, refreshing fruit funnels towards the back of your palate and coalesces into a broad, stony finish...so, yeah...the 'Secco' on the label isn't lying.
That brings us to the Rosé Trocken, the still counterpart to the Secco, made from the same Pinot Noir with 20% Cab/Merlot blend, which, for me, is high in the running for the 'stoniest' pinkie on the market.
Here we have a wine with a very focused nose of delicate-yet-serious, darker-pink fruits that unlock their nuance nicely on the finely textured palate. From here, it all picks up speed as the racy acidity (this is a wine of acidity) delivers you to a finish that seems like the liquefied version of a polished slate - so refined, so sleek, but so...solid.
This isn't the super-chiseled kind of 'mineral' that you usually picture from a rosé, it's broader, and burlier, but, like a like a pebble that was polished in a rock tumbler, it has no hard edges at all.
It's very cool stuff, especially following all that zippy acidity, and leaves wanting to dive right back in for another sip.
(It's also available in the visually striking magnum format, as well.)
So, yes, Trocken and Secco...both pink, both fabulously refreshing and both...dry...
...oh so gloriously, mineral-ly dry...
STEIN
Rosé Secco (Rosecco) 2019 $23
Rosé Trocken 2019 $21
Rosé Trocken 2019 1.5L
You may order by emailing info@mcf-rarewine.com or calling 212.255.8870.
Matt Franco
MCF Rare Wine, Ltd
249 West 13th Street NYC 10011
212.255.8870
WARNING: DRINKING DISTILLED SPIRITS, BEER, COOLERS, WINE AND OTHER ALCOHOLIC BEVERAGES MAY INCREASE CANCER RISK, AND, DURING PREGNANCY, CAN CAUSE BIRTH DEFECTS.