For all the lip service given to aging wine, the reality is that the time most bottles get to develop before being consumed really isn’t all that long. A year or two perhaps, between bottling and belly, or even mere months. But just because a wine isn’t buried in some dark wine cellar (or in my case, a heavily fortified wine storage facility in West Oakland) for a generation before being consumed doesn’t mean that it isn’t evolving. Our staff tastings have demonstrated again and again that wines can change markedly in just a few months. The rosés in this 12-pack are the perfect case in point. Lovingly crafted by producers that eschew the enological trickery usually employed for rosé production, these wines are dynamic and alive.
          Take Catherine & Pierre Breton’s Bourgueil Rosé “La Ritournelle.” Last spring I felt it was lean to the point of tartness, but in the intervening months, it has added the perfect amount of fruit to balance out the acidity I so love in Loire rosé. Or the “au petit bonheur” rosé from Les Pallières, which has developed a freshening herbal note to complement its barrel-aged luxuriance. The Mourvèdre-based Saint-Chinian Rosé from Mas Champart has blossomed into a complex, Bandol rosé lookalike. If you enjoyed these rosés this past summer, here’s the perfect opportunity to revisit them and see how they have evolved, because there’s something immensely gratifying about experiencing a wine at different stages of its lifetime, even if that evolution is measured in seasons instead of decades.