The rosé craze in recent years has unwittingly created a whole genre of thick, pink liquid sugar acid which, in my opinion, tastes less and less like wine and more like soda meets cough syrup. I carefully blazed my way through this trend by drinking aged whites (“orange wine”), lambrusco, freisa, pelaverga, poulsard, and other light reds that like to a chill. So when my friend Richard replaced the bottle I was about to buy with this rosé, I had no idea I was in for delicious.

This is maddeningly good wine. It is the most “masculine” rosé I’ve ever tasted; so much structure to it the fruit is more in the exhale than in the glass. You can taste the clay in the soil, almost strong enough that you’re licking a mineral block, which is pretty cool for a red wine. It’s everything you need a red wine to be in the heat of summer, but definitely substantial enough to carry through the colder seasons. Also, Primitivo? So much character, so much depth….look at you, all grown up.