Ideal crus for the barbecue!
As soon as the weather cooperates and the temperatures are pleasant, the barbecue is fired up. Barbecue and Rosé make a good pair, but also Crémants and local white wines go excellently with grilled fish and meat and with fresh salads.
Would you like some rosé?
Rosé wines are the perfect complement to light, fresh dishes such as fish and seafood. With their crisp acidity and delicate fruit flavours, they are a refreshing balance to the rich flavours of fish.
If you are serving grilled salmon or prawn skewers at your barbecue, you should drink a dry rosé with them, which will enhance the flavours of the seafood without overpowering them. But honestly – a nice white wine from the Moselle is ideal with a grilled fish or langoustine – it is simply proper in Luxembourg to also keep white wine chilled for the barbecue. Rivaner, Auxerrois and Pinot Blanc are ideal, and purists love their Riesling with the fish skewer.
Luxembourg or Provence ?
The classic rosés are, of course, those from Provence, but Luxembourg’s winegrowers have also been producing rosés for some time, and each winegrower has developed his or her own style. Each winegrower is free to produce his rosés as he wishes, there is no uniform regulation for the product. As a result, one finds very different tastes, from dry (with very low residual sugar content) to rather sweet rosés, which are particularly fruity. Luxembourg rosés also differ greatly in colour: there are those with the typical Provence colour, light pink with a touch of salmon and apricot, or strongly tinted, Tavel-like rosés. And you can also find everything in between, in practically all variations from pink to orange to purple.
Whereas fifteen years ago Luxembourg’s winegrowers mainly produced such pure-bred Pinot Noir rosés, which, depending on the vintage, taste full-bodied or rather acidic, today many blends are offered, just like in Provence, but of course with completely different grape varieties. It is not uncommon for Elbling or Rivaner to be blended into the cuvées. The reddish colour comes from the colour particles in the skin of the red grape varieties – besides Pinot Noir, these are Saint Laurent or red Elbling, and sometimes Pinotage, Pinot Noir précoce or Dakapo are also used as colouring agents.
Fruity and fresh
Pinot Noir rosés taste particularly distinctly of sour cherries, which is quite typical of the variety, but which some consumers find too obtrusive. Some winemakers also offer pure Saint Laurent rosés, whose taste tends more towards blackberry and blueberry.
Gris de Gris has become a real hit in recent years. In itself, this very aromatic wine, made from Pinot Gris, is not a typical rosé, but consumers expect that freshness that comes from pink wines. Gris de Gris gets its pigmentation and its slightly smoky, somewhat tart flavour from the short contact with the mash, just as happens with Pinot Noir. As an alternative to the classic rosé, the very fruity Gris de Gris, of which there are also dry to sweet varieties, is very popular in spring and summer.
Rosé wines and also Gris de Gris are excellent with barbecues, and because of their freshness they also go well with salads and side dishes such as ratatouille. A floral, fruit-driven, rather light rosé goes perfectly with a refreshing summer salad with melon, feta cheese, cucumber and mint, while a strong, full-bodied rosé complements salad creations with ingredients such as grilled chicken or steak.
Stay cool!
Typical barbecue specialities such as ribeye, burgers or entrecote naturally taste great with a nice red wine, but the problem on hot barbecue days is… the temperature of the wines. Even a red wine is only really good if it is served at the ideal temperature, no warmer than 18 degrees. Sure, you can also put red wine in the ice cooler, but then you should definitely not go for a high-quality red, but for fresh red wines like a simple, not barrel-aged Pinot Noir, which you can also chill a bit.
But a well-chilled rosé is simply the right choice at barbecues! A dry rosé goes perfectly with the smoky, savoury flavours of grilled meat.
The question remains how to cool rosés, white wines and the obligatory Crémant well at the barbecue and also keep them cool. Of course, mobile coolers that are electrically operated or well-insulated coolers with frozen cooling elements are perfect. However, a large container filled with ice cubes is also efficient. In this environment, the bottles cool quickly to the desired temperature and the ice keeps them at temperature for a long time – as long as you keep refilling the container with ice. And you should also cover it so that the ice does not melt quickly.
By the way: throwing ice cubes into the wine is a no-go. Who wants to drink wine diluted with water? Much more elegant are ice cubes made of plastic or stainless steel that contain water or salt water. They freeze like real ice cubes, but have the decisive advantage that they cool but do not melt. The flavour of the wines is thus largely preserved. You just have to have a lot of these cubes on hand, because they don’t help if they are defrosted…
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