Review: Cono Sur Pinot Noir Rosé

Since its founding in 1993 Cono Sur has impressed wine drinkers with a consistently good product. Its wines are varietally expressive, they taste clean, are not over-sulphured and they’re cheap. And I don’t mean that as a pejorative. 

In fact, given how we’re always told that “everything is going up because of this and that”, it’s a bit of a head scratcher how the wines from Cono Sur haven’t changed much in price at all. It seems that they have somehow remained immune from all those extra costs “due to COVID”.

With the 2024 vintage this wine shows itself to be a little more muted than in riper vintages when the alcohol is a little higher. It has those aromas and flavours one comes to expect of rosé with plenty of berry and citrus.

Here you’ll find wild strawberry, raspberry and lingonberry with a lime finish. It’s very dry with the acidity quite pronounced but not unpleasant. This wine could have used a little more sugar to make the flavours and aromas pop but I expect that the growing season just didn’t develop sufficient brix in the grapes. 

Kudos to the winemakers then for not adding sugar to the fermentation. This “chaptalization” is a recognized practice used (sometimes) throughout the world to augment a wine's character and to drive up alcohol. 

For those who like a dry rosé, this wine is hard to beat for the price. It may be a simple wine but it’s clean and refreshing. I added half a cup to my lamb stew and it clearly enhanced the dish with a fruitier facet. Yes this is a wine good enough to cook with. Never cook with a wine you wouldn’t drink.

I would also suggest this with Thai red curry and especially a prawn Pad Thai.

As of this writing there are approximately 570 bottles in the Ottawa market.