In the pink: Rosé to slay your summer thirst

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A young gun of wine shares his vintage tips as we offer four beautiful selections to be sipped on long ... Read More The post In the pink: Rosé to slay your summer thirst appeared…

Rosé is the perfect drop to be sipped on a summer afternoon. Pic: Getty Images

Winemakers tell you they love vintage. The annual harvest is all about them getting hands-on, as they test and squeeze and smell the grapes to gauge the perfect moment for picking. Then they watch the fruits of their labour, literally, evolve into this wondrous thing called wine.

By the end of vintage, though, most involved will also admit they’re exhausted – especially when this “grand final” of a winemaker’s season sometimes rolls on for almost a third of the year.

“That’s the bed we made for ourselves,” laughs Aaron Mercer, and the Hunter Valley-based vigneron already knows from seeing early budburst on vines locally that another strenuous season lies ahead.

Earlier this year we noted his success in being named Rising Star of the Year by the Real Review, and since then Aaron has won the Best White, Best Red and Best Wine of Show at the NSW Wine Awards just a few days ago.

While some wineries take pride in their “grape to glass” philosophy of growing through to pouring, Mercer is a winemaker whose award-winning skill is building relations with elite, sustainable winegrowers across NSW and turning their grapes into prized wines.

The only downside is rolling his sleeves up a couple of weeks after Christmas, ready to pluck the first chardonnay grapes of the season off their vines in the Hunter Valley, and knowing the final montepulciano grapes from the Central Ranges of NSW won’t follow suit until well into April or even May.

Four years ago Aaron’s vintage stretched to 100 days, not to mention the arrival of his and wife Alison’s third child. Maintaining focus is crucial.

“I think we picked our first grapes on January 9 (in 2026) and we expect it to be similar this year,” Aaron tells us.

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