Dining out raises red-or-white dilemma

Frequently, when I go out to dinner with a group of friends, some prefer white wine and others red with their meal. Usually, we try to compromise with a rose, but it doesn’t always work for the red wine drinkers. Can you recommend a good rose for these situations?

I can recommend good roses, but unfortunately they won’t solve the problem. Although the pink color seems midway between red and white, the wine is not. Roses are essentially white wines with just enough red wine added to give color (or less often, a method is applied that uses contact with the pigmented skins to achieve the same effect). They taste pretty much like white wines.

A better solution is to order one of the types of red wine that taste somewhat like a white wine. The most widely available on restaurant lists is a French Beaujolais, sometimes described as the white wine that happens to be red. In fact, it is closer to a red in flavor, but it has peachy, citrusy notes that suggest a white wine.

The best solution is to order half-bottles of red and white, which more and more restaurants are stocking. They are superior to wines by the glass because they are guaranteed to be freshly opened and usually offer more ounces of wine for the money.