I just drank a pink wine. Before I go into reviewing the wine, let me tell you how I feel about pink drinks. Personally. I think that Bacchus will create a special place of torment in the after life for those lovely people at a winery to remain nameless (but it rhymes with Butter Gnome) who first perverted the Zinfandel to make….White Zin (shudder).
Then, to make matters worse, Sex and the City came along. Cosmopolitans. Pink. Good vodka ruined. And, to make matters worse, the Cosmo slurping protagonist Carrie cheated on Every-Man Hero Aidan with Mr. Big (of all people!). That hurt me, as well as most guys I know, because we identified with Aidan way more than with Mr. Big. Not that any of us watched it or anything…it was just on...wife was a fan… How can any self-respecting guy enjoy a pink drink?
So what was this pink wine? It was a creation by the fine folks at Praxis (Praxis makes perfect is their too-cute slogan) called Praxis Dry Syrah Rosé from Alexander Valley. I love syrah, and I really hoped I wasn’t waling into another Butter Gnome White Zin abomination.
Let me start with the color. It really wasn’t pink. It was more of a salmon pink, possibly a dusty rose. It was a pretty color and it reminded me of a carnation I wore to a high school dance. Waxing nostalgic, I put on Alphaville’s “Forever Young” and started to drink.
The aroma was beautiful. The first thing that hit me was this nice floral aroma. I thought I caught a little watermelon underneath the floral scent, but it may have been my eyes playing tricks on my nose. Then again, drinking wine involves multiple senses at once, so I guess I did detect watermelon. There was also a nice pear / light berry thing floating around there.
I was very excited by now, so I took a swig. Nice. Lots of fruit – pear and strawberry seemed to dominate it for me. There was also something like Kiwi without the tartness swimming through underneath the pears. I thought that the smoothness of the pear flavor nicely rounded out the sharper flavors of the strawberry and kiwi to make this a very nice, round interesting wine.
The finish was something that I really didn’t expect, but I loved it. There was a really nice vanilla and toast finish going on. It lingered very well. Since it is a rosé, there weren’t any of the tannins associated with Syrah wines. It also wasn’t some over-oaked mess that a lot of wines become in California.
So what to do with this wine? It is a beautiful wine. It is a perfect wine for the ABC crowd (Anything But Chard/Cab). It would go well with fatless meats (think chicken and fish) that are cooked cleanly. Roasted veggies; whatever. If it is a clean-cooked, simple meal, this wine is perfect.
Don’t be embarrassed by the color or the too-cute slogan (which doesn’t appear on the label anyway). Drink this wine with pride when a Chardonnay just doesn’t seem…right. Because, believe me, the Praxis Dry Syrah Rosé is right.
--Scott
