Arras Tasmania Methode Traditionelle Rosé 2006
($80; 12.5% alcohol; cork)

This won’t be a long review. I’m in the pink. Or it’s probly a bit more pheasant eye, toward the brown onion skin, which is risky territory for a colourblind lad.

Remi Krug had a theory about the popularity of pink champagne relying on a significant royal taking a fondness, but that was back when Princess Diana was on it. This wine reminds me of his. It’s not as fine – missing out by a few microns – and a tiny bit sweeter methinks, not having the Big K at hand for a compo. But I remember. One doesn’t forget.

Maybe the Austral CO2, like gas itself, is sweeter than the stuff they get in the bubbles in Old Yurp, as George W Bush called France, Italy, Germany and probably Britain. This Arras has that wheatfield-after-drizzle pastorale feeling about it, well-whipped in with the white pulp of forest strawberries.

It’s ravishing. Best Australian rosé fizz I know. By miles. It’s swoony more than prickly; moody more than bright, although if you mean IQ by bright, it’s very, very that. But it’s not like aggro or smartypants in your face. You can simply put this in your mouth and swallow it. And it will make you happy. All its hyper-intelligent focus is on you, and how it can pleasure you. How it can warm your soul and help you think everything’s much better than it is.

Don’t go out there. Pawn the big screen. Get one of these and stay inside with it. Play some Nancy Wilson. Get some inside of you. Spend a few hours together. In moderation.

drinkster.blogspot.com