GOT LEGS

It had been a grey and wet day; one of those days that feels particularly gloomy when it comes after a week of beautiful spring weather. For the first time in six months, I’d been able to go outside wearing a just t-shirt without a jumper or a jacket so to go back to grey drizzle felt like landing on a snake in a game of snakes and ladders. I was feeling tired so dinner was a bean stew, almost cassoulet-style, with some potatoes cooked also in duck-fat. With that, I had been planning to drink a pinot noir from Alsace.

Disappointingly, the pinot noir was more muscley than I had been expecting. I had been hoping for something earthy and rustic, but instead it was big and velvety. Nice, but not what I was after. Glancing around the kitchen, I spotted a bottle of rosato from Bosco Falconeria (left over from the VinNatur wine fair) and let me just say, it was perfect!

Resolution for 2026 – don’t relegate rosé wine to summer thirst-quenchers. Yes, I know that summer holidays are synonymous with rosé piscine – but a good rosé can be so much more than that. To apply that famous Dirty Dancing quote to this situation: “nobody puts Baby in a corner.”

---

BOSCO FALCONERIA “Rosato” Alcamo DOC 2024, 13.5% ABV

This is dark rosé, the colour of pomegranate juice. In France this would probably be considered a red wine already. It’s 100% nero d’avola, which spent a short time on the skins (roughly 24 hours, apparently) for colour and complexity.

The smell really reminds me of red wine-gums, but if you don’t know that reference, let’s just stick to the more classic terms: red cherry, wild strawberry and ripe raspberry… The mouthfeel is wide, open, but gentle – the only power comes from the 13.5% ABV – but it’s a soft as a silk glove.

There’s no tannin, nothing drying, the acidity is low, so you finish on the fruity-juiciness and a saltiness which seems to make this one of the most versatile wines I’ve tried recently for food pairings.

---

Also worth mentioning is Bosco Falconeria’s catarratto called “Falco Peregrino.” It’s one of the first wines that jumps to mind when I think of a skin-contact wine from Sicily that is balanced and really drinkable.

BOSCO FALCONERIA “Falco Peregrino” Terre Siciliane IGT 2024, 13% ABV

Beautiful rich, amber colour. Liquid gold. Expressive savoury aromas – of wild grasses and herbs, turmeric, and honeycomb… In a similar style to the rosato that I drank before, this also feels expansive, smooth, round, but here there is an extra dimension that I didn’t find in the rosato: a bitterness which appears only as an after-taste.

Two really delicous, well-made, natural wines.

---