Almost 3 years after the purchase I finally opened that unique Rosepetal Flower Wine. Being rosé, it didn’t call for bottle-ageing, but somehow it took me all that time to find the right moment and the right company to taste it.

If you are unfamiliar with the process of making rosé wines, you might be thinking that rose petals infuse the pink colour into the liquid. In fact, it is the Durif grape base that tints the wine. During fermentation winemakers add dark grape skins to the vat, and if they keep them in long enough the wine becomes red. However, if the contact is brief the wine acquires that glamorous pink tone so treasured by little girls (when they grow up pink dresses become non comme il faut, but rosé is never out of vogue).

In a glass the wine produced a sweet floral bouquet (with rose petal wine there is no escaping calembours) which reminded me of a subtle fresh smell of crushed rose petals rather than of rose essential oil. That was the aroma that I expected to feel when, many years ago, I opened my first bottle of rosé!

Unfortunately, the tasting didn’t bring any more discoveries – the delicate rose petal flavour was supported by a rather ordinary rosé wine. The winemaker made the wine medium dry in a rightful attempt to offset Durif’s acidity, but did not completely succeed. In admission of the resulting lack of balance the tasting notes on the bottle recommended to serve it chilled with Camembert. I didn’t exactly follow the advice — I served it at 15°C with Brie — and was not impressed.

Ideally, I would like to drink such wine without food as an aperitif — just one liqueur glass before food. For that it must have less acidic grape base which would allow to drop the sweetness to off-dry. Nevertheless, with a little bit of accompaniment (I would further experiment with soft cheeses) and some chilling the wine should be enjoyable to drink. It also delivers on its rose petal flavour promise and is pretty singular among Australian wines which makes it a great gift, especially for a lady.