Can you age rosé, and which styles are best for cellaring?
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Dear Dr. Vinny,
Can you age rosé? Which styles are best for cellaring?
—Lindy, Columbus, Ohio
Dear Lindy,
You can absolutely age rosé. (You can also age white and sparkling wines!) It’s not going to make you sick or go bad—just make sure you cellar it in the right conditions. Most rosés, especially the pale pink versions from Provence, are made to be drunk upon release, but I’ve enjoyed many memorable bottles of old rosé from Spain, France, the United States and beyond.
In my experience, most rosés will taste terrific on release, and up to 3–5 years post-release without a problem. I have friends who prefer to drink all rosé after a year or two of aging, which can help round out the flavors and make the wine more harmonious and complex. After that, you might find they start to fade or become less charming than their younger counterparts, especially rosés made in a bright, friendly style that are made to be drunk young. Depending on your taste, you may prefer to drink such rosés immediately upon release.
Older rosés often show more savory, spicy, earthy notes. While aged wine isn’t to everyone’s taste, if you enjoy other mature wines, you’ll probably appreciate the developed flavors rosés take on with time.
Which rosés are best for cellaring? There’s no real consensus. Because of how they’re made, rosés tend to be light on the stuff that gives wines the stuffing to age, especially tannins and other phenolic material. Some people believe that you should go for bottlings that are darker in color, such as the wines from the Tavel appellation in the Rhône Valley. That might indicate that the wine was made with more skin contact, which can mean more tannins and phenolics.
But that philosophy won’t work if the wine isn’t balanced upon release (remember that a wine cellar is not a wine hospital, and not all wines improve with age). I’ve also seen some fairly light-colored rosés that aged beautifully, and some darker ones that didn’t. Tannins aren’t the only thing that helps wine age; in the case of rosé, acidity and the winemaking approach play crucial roles too.
Some people believe ageability depends on the grape that the rosé is made from. The thinking goes that rosé made from a more ‘serious’ grape (such as Pinot Noir, Grenache or Syrah) should age better. There’s no doubt that rosés made from different grapes have different textures and flavor and aroma profiles. But again, so much has to do with the particular wine and how it was made. I take all grapes seriously, as well as their ability to age, and I’m always happy to be surprised by a wine that’s aged better than most people might expect. Being pleasantly surprised by wine is one of life’s great pleasures.
My advice is to do some experimenting on your own with your favorite rosés, and see how the astonishing variety of rosé styles compare as they evolve over time. I suspect that as with aging other types of wine, you’ll find that there are some spectacular old versions, while the large majority are best when they are released or soon thereafter. And with rare exception, you’ll probably want to pop the cork on a bottle within a few years, and no more than a decade or so—this isn’t Barolo or grand cru Burgundy, after all.
—Dr. Vinny
