Such is pink wine’s popularity that there are plenty of people who drink it all year round, but for most of us it is a summer tipple, to be enjoyed from now through to mid September. The reward for those of us who have waited is that the first flush of 2018 European pinks that landed here in the spring have lost their off-putting, precocious pear drop and bubblegum scent and have turned into svelte, fruit-first summer sips. France provided the lion’s share of the 100 million bottles of pink wine that we downed last year (more than 2 million bottles up on the year before, but not back up to 2011’s peak), and the quality continues to rise, with this summer’s crop the best…

Source: The Times May 24, 2019 23:05 UTC