Beat da Heat with with this High QPR Refresher from Costco

Fast Facts:

• 2023 Kirkland Signature Côtes de Provence Rosé, Provence, France   ($7.99 @Costco in California – Item #1133993) 

It is seemingly (very!) hot everywhere, so the choice for our Wine of the Week (W.O.W!) was a bit of a no-brainer.

We had planned to purchase and review the KS Barolo after some of you reported seeing it in stores on the east coast. Alas, it has not landed here on the left coast yet and frankly, it is too hot to think about steaming bowls of pasta and glasses of Barolo.

We shall seek relief here with this beauty…

For my tastes, the best rosés come from Provence. They are dry, restrained and totally refreshing. Problem is, they can be expensive. It is rare to find one for under $10. Heck, it can be difficult to find one for under $20! When it comes to price, a couple of important caveats apply.  You can find cheaper ones that are not from the current vintage. But rosés are not built to be aged.  So if it doesn’t come from the most recent vintage (in the case of the northern hemisphere, that would be 2023) then proceed with caution. And if it comes from the southern hemisphere and it says 2022, understand that makes the wine six months older still. In other words, a 2022 rose from Australia, say, is two years old. We would say too old.

The other important caveat is that the normal rules of the wine market don’t apply as uniformly when we are talking about wines from Costco. As the largest wine retailer in the world, Costco breaks all the rules that it can bend.  This means your wine dollar gets stretched, in a good way.

The blend is largely similar to past vintages, but it has been tweaked to be a melange of 36% Grenache, 28% Cinsault, 12% Syrah, 10% Vermentino, 5% Carignan, 5% Tibouren,  and 4% Ugni Blanc. Yep, that adds up to 100% delicious!

Best of all, this wine is as good as past vintages, and the price remains at a mouth watering $7.99. Have we wet yer whistle?

Tasting Notes:

In the glass, the wine pours a pale copper/salmon color with nice clarity.  There are notes of roses, strawberries and red raspberries on the nose. In the mouth it’s all strawberry rhubarb pie and hints of the aforementioned fruits plus citrus and rosehips. It also has a bit of minerality and salinity that makes for nice palate cleansing.  Clean, crisp and dry – this is a wine that begs for summertime, when the living is easy! ABV = 13%

 

Provençal wine comes from the French wine-producing region of Provence in southeast France. It’s there in the blue shaded region below:

Wine as been made in this region for at least 2,600 years. Today the region is known predominantly for its rosé wines, which account for more than half of the production of Provençal wine, with red wine accounting for about a third of the region’s production. The Côtes de Provence (which translates to: the hills of Provence) is the largest AOC followed by the Coteaux d’Aix-en-Provence.

If this missive finds the temperatures warm where you are, be sure to put a good chill in this bottle of rosé.  Relax with a tall pour. Repeat. It will be just the ticket to keeping your cool.

Need More Wine Picks from Costco – or Trader Joe’s Even?

If your wine shopping excursions land you in Costco, prepare by grazing our most recent reviews of Costco wines here in our Lucky 13 list.

And if your shopping finds you at Trader Joe’s, you can find our Lucky 13 list of TJ’s wine here.

Stay cool everyone!

Cheers!