2018 Early Form: Best Rose Wines
Chicquita Lodge is a famous landmark at Melbourne’s Flemington racecourse. One-thousand meters from the finishing line, it is the first point insiders look for a likely winner of the 3200m Melbourne Cup.
So it is with wine show rankings. More than 25,000 of the 40,000-odd scores that will be reported this year have now been published. Some large and influential shows are still to come but firm indications of the new season’s best wines have already emerged.
Few wines herald the advent of the spring racing season better than rose. Pink wine is Australia’s fastest growing category and it would be a brave punter who didn’t back it to at least place as the favorite tipple in the Birdcage this year.
Rose exhibits at wine shows are up 13 per cent on last year. They’re also showing a slight improvement in quality with average scores hovering just over the threshold for a bronze medal.
As with horses, it appears lineage counts for something in the pink drinks stakes, too. Three of the top five wines in the interim list below are new season editions of last year’s final top five.
There’s still a lot of wine show judging between now and Christmas. In the meantime, here’s our guide to the best rose wine labels this summer:
| 1 | Deep Woods Estate Harmony Rose 2018 |
| 2 | Bird in Hand Pinot Noir Rose 2018 |
| 3 | Shingleback Haycutters Salmon Rose 2018 |
| 4 | Shingleback Aficionado Rose 2018 |
| 5 | Blue Pyrenees Bone Dry Rose 2017 |
| 6 | Australian Vintage Ltd Nepenthe Altitude Rose 2017 |
| 7 | Innocent Bystander Rose 2017 |
| 8 | Jacob’S Creek Le Petit Rosé 2018 |
| 9 | Longview Vineyard Nebbiolo Rosato 2018 |
| 10 | Angove Family Winemakers Alternatus Rose 2018 |
| 11 | ALDI Australia South Point Estate Rose 2018 |
| 12 | Haselgrove Wines Alternative Series Grenache Rose 2018 |
| 13 | Willow Bridge Estate Rosa De Solana Rosé 2018 |
| 14 | De Bortoli Wines Down the Lane Gris de Gris Rose 2017 |
| 15 | Hahndorf Hill Rose 2018 |
| 16 | Paulett Watervale Grenache Rose 2018 |
| 17 | De Bortoli Wines Sacred Hill Rose 2018 |
| 18 | Dandelion Vineyards Fairytale of the Barossa Rose 2017 |
| 19 | Australian Vintage Limited McGuigan Rose 2018 |
| 20 | Harcourt Valley Rose 2017 |