There is never really a bad time for rosé – it’s refreshing, a versatile food wine and a superb thirst quencher on a warm day.  So when NYC temperatures soar about 80 degrees, there’s no better time to break out the first rosé of the season.

Photo credit: Wahlander on Flickr

Some rosé wines are made by actually combining finished white and red wines together, but the more traditional (and typically higher quality) versions are produced by pressing red skinned grapes and leaving the skins in contact with the wine for a short period of time to impart the pink color as well as more complexity to the flavors and aromatics.

Weingut Mayr produces a white , a red and a small amount of rosé all from indigenous grape varietals.  Mayr is located in the far north of Italy – not necessarily the place you’d expect to find rosés being produced.  But this tiny family winery sits along the Isarco River in the (relatively) warm Bolzano valley basin.  Both the red and rosé are made from the lagrein varietal, a grape whose history in Italy can be traced back 600+ years.

The color of the wine is a deep, rich pink… perhaps due in some part to the 3 years or so of bottle age.  The aromatics are truly delicious – pomegranate seed, cranberry, maraschino cherry and faint hints of bubble gum.  The flavors follow suit, with cranberry sauce, strawberry and a bit of cotton candy.  The bubble gum and cotton candy might sound sickly sweet, but this wine is bone dry with plenty of acidity.  It is simply another layer of complexity achieved by this pretty spectacular rosé.

We drank it with a heaping bowl of rustic pasta and it was a great pairing.  It would also be a perfect with a meat and cheese board as an aperitif.

For those keeping track at home, the wine is also certified organic.  The only downside to this wine is probably the price.  At $25+ this is not a cheap bottle of rosé.  However, if ever there was a bottle of $25 rosé worth every penny, it’s probably this one.