On the recent trip out for this wedding in Mallorca, the wife and I picked up a bottle of Mateus Rosé at the market. That’s right, Mateus Rosé. The infamous wine that kept middle classes in the 60s and 70s plastered! It’s got a shocking reputation these days, but I’d never tried it. And there it was on the shelf for €5!
This was a wine that was created to start “Brand Portugal”. Thought up in the 1940s by SoGrape, the success of Mateus Rosé in the following years meant SoGrape had the capital to become Portugal’s biggest wine exporter, with brands now covering table wines from across Portugal and Port. So without Mateus Rosé, would we all be enjoying all these great wines from Alentejo and the Douro?
As sweet and sticky as it used to be, it was made less sweet and sticky and more bubbly at the turn of the century, and following years of decline in sales, it was relaunched in the UK to cling onto 70s nostalgia apparently! It worked to an extent with sales, but the image has remained unchanged. It’s almost a bit of a joke wine.
Well I wasn’t going to knock it til I’d tried it, so in the fridge it went. On opening it, I was…well…non-plussed. It wasn’t awful, it was decently balanced, but neither was it a wine I would ever tell people “oh you’ve got to go try it!” There was non real finish to speak of. Maybe if you wanted something cold and bubbly on a hot day? Sparkling water works for that! To be honest I was mostly disappointed by my complete lack of a strong opinion!
So I’m going to finish by saying that I’m glad Mateus Rosé is around. Ok, it might not be something I’ll ever drink again, but I’m also not going to jump on the bandwagon of trashing it either! You’ve got to remember its success led to the opening up of Portuguese wines to the world. If nothing else it deserves a clap for that!
Cheers
Mike
I love that you and your wife picked it up. The bottle is quite lovely and as you said, it was a success in opening up the world to Portugese wines. Thanks for the fun read, Mike. 🙂
Ah thanks so much, yeah was strange to call it a wine adventure…but there it is! 🙂
Mateus Rose has its moments. Not bad for something on the lighter side.
Leslie
Yeah, i hink “not bad” is the best description i can think of!
I definitely love the bottle! I will have to look into this perhaps for a tasting at my Wine Bar! 🙂
Check out Clarets Girl’s post, loving the bottle!
They can’t all be winners right? I’ve actually had some nice dry Rose’s this year which I enjoy much more than the sweet ones.
Yeah, the americans are a little too used to white zinfandel, dry rosés are the way forward!
…. and did you know the bottle design was based on the flasks soldiers carried in WW1
Pub fact! Love it!
Next week on our way to Stockton we will try all the wine we can.l will remember your remarks about certain wine.Regards.
Enjoy the trip boss
Thank you my friend.Jalal
I quite like it. I’ve had much, much worse in my time 🙂
I hear you Jo, as I said, I had nothing really bad to say about it!
Interestingly, … we used to say “cook your goose, with Mateus” when we were young and underage. This was one of the “go-to” choices for us back then, because it was soooooo cheap. Ah yes, … sickly sweet hangovers of my misspent youth … 🙂
Haha, oh dear, this bringing back bad memories?? 🙂
No … not at all. As a matter of fact … I smiled at the old memories of hanging around outside the Liquor store as a teenager and asking adults to buy us a cheap bottle of wine.
Ahhhh the growing pains 🙂
Thanks for the memories 🙂
Good man! We all had our tactics 🙂
Truth 🙂