Play Estate Rosé bright and light on the taste buds

Play time with Rose de Syrah

Allison Markin - Apr 5, 2020 / 4:00 am | Story: 296438

Photo: Contributed

Wine: Rosé de Syrah, 2019

Winery: Play Estate, Penticton

Why drink it? Spring is surely coming, and that means rosé season approaches. With a new winemaker, whimsically delightful new labels, and a quiet rebirth, Play has introduced some new wines, including this dry rosé. A beautiful wild-salmon pink with aromas of pink grapefruit, cranberries, boysenberry, and hints of fresh white pepper and rosemary. Bright and light on the taste buds, the grapes were elegantly treated with basket pressing before going into stainless steel, resulting in a fresh, juicy acidity on the finish. As they say in the theatre biz (the inspiration for the winery’s name), bravo.

Price: $22

Pair with: It’s time to dig down deep in the freezer to find the rhubarb, cherries, Saskatoon berries, raspberries, or strawberries you froze last year, and make yourself a delicious tart crumble. Or source some soft goat cheese, dig out the walnuts from the pantry, and roast some beets for a salad.

Music pairing: Why Play Games, Diana Ross

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About the Author

As a kid, Shelley Boettcher often found herself in the back seat of a pick-up, exploring the back roads of the Okanagan Valley with her parents. They’d occasionally leave her and her brother in the car while they stopped at mysterious addresses to buy wine. They would emerge, clearly happy, as they stuck a box or a few bottles in the vehicle. Then they would continue on their journey.

But it wasn’t until a trip to Spain in 2000 that Shelley herself fell in love with wine. She came home from the holiday and promptly told her editor she wanted to become a wine writer.

And she did.

An award-winning food and wine writer and editor, Shelley holds her master’s degree in journalism and her advanced WSET certification, as well as her level 2 International Sommelier Guild certification. A wine columnist for the Calgary Herald, she spent a decade as CBC Radio’s national syndicated wine columnist and she has written three books about wine, including two that were Canadian bestsellers. Her byline has appeared in magazines and newspapers around the world, including the New York Times, The Guardian, The Globe and Mail and Postmedia newspapers across Canada.

Shelley has travelled throughout many of the world’s wine regions and countries, including Niagara, Oregon, Washington, California, France, Italy, Portugal, Spain, Australia, Germany, Argentina and the Republic of Georgia. A few years ago, she even tracked down and visited a winery in Denmark.

Shelley has also served as a professional wine judge regionally and internationally, including the Okanagan Wine Festivals, Vinitaly and the Chianti Classico Consortium. For more than a decade, she has been a restaurant wine list judge for the Vancouver International Wine Festival, too. She still teases her parents for sparking her love for wine, especially BC wine.

And her favourite? Whatever she's drinking at the moment.

You can follow Shelley on Instagram @shelleyboettcher or Twitter at @shelley_wine.

If you have a BC wine you’d like to suggest, email Shelley at [email protected] with the name of the wine and a short note about why you enjoyed it.