I don’t have anything against rosé. I like a good rosé, as long as it’s dry. One of the best tastings I ever went to was at the old Vertigo restaurant, in San Francisco, which claimed to have the nation’s biggest rosé wine list. The bartender set me up at the bar one afternoon before the place opened, and I happily explored the wonderful world of [mostly French] rosés.

What I do have something against is this meme, which seems to have popped up a year or two ago, that rosé is the greatest thing since sliced bread. I mean, you can’t pick up a Sunset Magazine or a wine magazine or an airplane magazine without an article trumpeting rosé as the chic new black. The latest is the San Francisco Chronicle’s Sunday article, “Planet Pink: How rosé became the wine lover’s darling—and a social media sensation.”

Let’s get this straight right away: rosé is not “the wine lover’s darling.” There’s no such thing as “the wine lover’s darling.” It’s not orange wine, and it’s not Prosecco, and it’s not anything else that has hitherto been acclaimed to be the next big thing. Rosé is simply a nice little wine that can be delicious with charcuterie, but “darling”? I think not.

What is it about the wine press that they always have to be discovering some trend? I suppose it’s inherent in the nature of media publications. If you write for a newspaper, then you have to dig up some “news.” If there isn’t any, then you take some current thing and inflate it so that it can plausibly be called “news.” This happens in politics all the time: it’s the “shiny new thing” phenomenon, also known as “shiny object syndrome,” where “a new idea captures your imagination and attention in such a way that you get distracted from the bigger picture and go off in tangents instead of remaining focused on the goal.” In my opinion, Republicans do this all the time: they dangle Obama’s birthplace, or some other nonsense, in front of the electorate, hoping to divert our attention from real issues, such as jobs, healthcare, the cost of college education, climate change and the vast disparity of incomes in America—issues for which that political party has no answers.

Wine writers are not quite as cynical or calculating as political operatives, but “shiny object syndrome” is something they indulge in due to the pressures of their jobs. One couldn’t really publish a wine section in a major daily newspaper and say, “There’s nothing particularly new in the wine industry today,” could one? So you come up with yet another “darling.”

Now, what’s this about “a new social media sensation”? Same old same old. If you want to bolster your case that something really is a darling, then you go to the Google machine and find as many glowing references to it online as you can. That bolsters your case: not only is it your claim that something is a darling, but all those wise people out there on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter are saying the same thing! Therefore it must be true: for social media doesn’t lie, exaggerate or distort, it is a magical expression of authentic thinking in the world, and thus the perfect tool for trendspotting.

Well, I am being sarcastic, of course. Social media is filled with the same ridiculousness as life itself. The rule of social media is fifteen minutes of fame, after which the phenomenon in question sinks back into obscurity, to be replaced by the next “darling.”

Besides, what if rosé really is the new “darling”? Does that make you want to run out and find a rosé? Maybe you’re the type of person who feels that you don’t want to miss out on something that everybody else knows about. If that’s the case, it’s not rosé you’re looking for. But, as I said, rosé can be delightful, especially during the kind of heat wave that California is now experiencing. It’s forecast to be one of the longest heat waves we’ve had in years—started yesterday and will continue at least through this week. This is not what growers need at this time: it will profoundly speed up the ripening process on those grapes not already picked, leading to a possible crush rush; there will be cases of sunburnt fruit; and if you can’t find pickers to harvest your grapes in time, you’re going to have sugar spikes to deal with.

I am off on another road trip for Jackson Family Wines, down to Newport Beach for a fancy dinner. This time, alas, I must leave Gus behind, but he’s in good hands with my family. Have a great day. Grab yourself a nice rosé, chill it, and savor it later this afternoon by your pool, if you have a pool. If you don’t, savor it anyway.

Salud!

It was hot in Oakland yesterday—the city of Pittsburg, in the Delta, hit 93 degrees—and I was doing a lot of running around, so when I got home, around 5 p.m., I was thirsty. I happened to have a bottle of a rosé in the fridge (not Jackson Family), and it looked mighty welcoming, so I popped the cork, poured myself a glass, and sipped.

Ahhh.

The label doesn’t say what the blend is, but it’s Provençal. I think there’s some Grenache in there, maybe Cinsaut and almost definitely Syrah, but it doesn’t really matter. We make too much of the varieties in these blended wines. The winemaker isn’t trying to do some cookbook sort of thing, according to some theory, but to craft the best wine she can. But we’re addicted to knowing the blend, so there’s pressure on proprietors to put it on the bottle. In a way, I admire this particular winery for resisting that impulse. They’re telling us, “Don’t focus on the grape varieties, focus on the wine.”

Rosé is red-hot (no pun intended). It’s always been around, of course, but it’s never been this popular. I wonder why. Summer’s coming, of course, and rosé hits that sweet spot of being midway between a white wine and a red wine. When I was on the road last week in New England, I was surprised by how many people I met who told me that they don’t care for (red or white: pick one), but love the other one. I, myself, can’t imagine ever being in that dilemma. But if you are, I’d think a rosé would be the best of both worlds.

How do the critics treat rosé? Not very respectfully. There’s a tendency among them to view it as a simple, inexpensive wine, made from press juice, without complexity. That can be the case, but not always. The wine I’m drinking now—the rosé from my fridge—is quite a complicated thing. It’s bone dry, with wonderful acidity, and the fruit (strawberries barely turned pink, orange zest, pink grapefruit) has a herbaceousness that reminds me of fresh thyme and white or pink peppercorns. Were I reviewing it, I’d probably give it 89 or 90 points, but I’m pretty sure that most other critics would score it lower than that, maybe around 87 or 88.

Why is it that certain wines never seem to rise above a certain score? Sauvignon Blanc is another. I’ve wrestled with that question for a long time, and still can’t really answer it. Since I’m “guilty” of the same thing myself, I can’t accuse other critics of any sort of impropriety. I think what it comes down to is that Sauvignon Blanc and rosé (to mention just two California wines) traditionally never got very high scores, and so critics don’t want to go out on a limb and give them 95s or 97s. After all, they have their reputations to protect. And yet, why shouldn’t a great rosé get 97 points?

Parker says his highest ratings are for ageable wines, so I guess he’s off the hook. The vast majority of rosés aren’t ageable. But one could argue that, within the context of rosé-ness, there are rosés that approach perfection, so why wouldn’t you give a perfect rosé a perfect score? Because to give a wonderful Provençal wine 100 points—the same as Petrus or Verité—would seem a little odd.

But why? Ageability aside, we’re talking about perfection within the context of what the wine is—the sandbox it plays in—and it seems to me to be unfair to say, “This is a perfect rosé” and give it 94 points, and “This is a perfect Cabernet” and give it 100 points.

Well, here I am, realizing stuff after I’ve retired as a wine critic! But if I had to do it all over again, I’d be more generous with my 100s. Break the rules, if you will, redefine them. Wine criticism has turned rather baroque, if you ask me: mannered, adhering to a strict canon, rather rigid. It needs to be shook up—intelligently. Not smashed, not taken over idiotically, but systematically redefined in a way that’s fairer than it has been, when only certain regions or varieties could star. That has got to change.