Oliver’s Taranga Chica Mencia Rosé 2022

If great Grenache from McLaren Vale and other Aussie regions is currently the hottest thing on wine shelves, delicious, fresh, dry Rosé is close behind it. These guys do both! Mencia is not a grape that will be familiar to many locals but it makes some fine reds from the Bierzo region in northwest Spain. Corrina and her team have made it as a Rosé and they have revived the technique of carbonic maceration to do so. This contributes to the delightful fragrances and the texture of the wine. The colour of roaring sunset pink. Delightful aromatics with spices, raspberries, dry herbs and a hint of warm earth and Turkish Delight. Good focus, this is a clean and refreshing style with a non-cloying, dry finish. A really good Rosé and definitely worth enjoying with alfresco dining or just as a pleasing drink. Excellent length. As for time of drinking, now would be perfect but it won’t be the end of the world if you extend that over the next few years. I should, of course, add that this, thanks to the Small Batch attribution for each year, apparently was the year that the cellar door team hand-picked the grapes on Valentine’s Day (things may be different in South Australia but, as far as I know, it is not usually a public holiday for the rest of us).