2008 Madame Fleur 365 Whole Foods Rose

I hate to admit it, but I've come around to the Whole Foods thing. It's hard for me to drop a grudge, but I'll look past the snarky 'anonymous' comments on this blog that came from Whole Foods corporate offices.

Anyways, yes, it is expensive but almost always far less than I expect it to be and frequently on par with big name grocers. As an example, just today I spotted an entire display of nice looking strawberries for the same price as some rather suspect looking ones at the Jewels. And where else can you get a slice of vegan sausage pizza? I mean, it's terrible (the cheese, not the sausage), but for the vegan in your life that's astounding. This wine, a rose from France itself, was ten bucks and is part of the 365 Whole Foods house brand.

A somewhat mild nose, with watermelon notes coming through. I wonder if anyone has ever done analysis on these things - is there any chemical part to roses that have something that would suggest watermelon or is it just color? I've never hit watermelon on a white wine. I may have to do a tasting or two blindfolded.

An argument can be made that any sort of formal tasting notes on a $10 store brand rose is silly. I agree. I do it anyway, because that's what blogging is about. Quite light in body, bone dry, a bit of fruit, some mild suggestions of tannins, a bit of that strawberry seed thing - not strawberries the fruit itself, but just shave off some of those tiny seats and chew them up (obviously you are getting the essence of strawberry in the seed, but it's more of an almost floral thing - maybe I should be going with strawberry tea).

This is the kind of wine where it's tough to do notes because you sit there, you take a sip, you put it down, you lean back, think about how glad you are that it's Friday, then take another sip, and the next thing you know the bottle's gone and you don't where you left your pants. No complaints at all - this is as good as you should expect for ten bones. I may have to investigate some of the other 365 offerings.

Score: 87