Mother’s Day is at bay.  Now you could get creative and buy her Single Malt Whiskey (could work).  But honestly, Spring is also here (well, mostly).  Flowers bloom.  These warm-ish, sunny-ish days call from something fresh, fruity, and friendly.  A bellowing cabernet might distract from those lovely conversations about why you haven’t had kids yet.

So embrace that marketed cliché: buy rosé for Mother’s Day!

But since you might drink it as well, why not stretch her and your boundaries with a region too often lost in the pink sea of white zin and Provence: Bardolino Chiaretto

Bardolino Chiaretto: the red blotch with the lake view.

Tucked around lake Garda’s shimmering banks, deep into Italy’s north (actually just south of last Thirsty Thursday’s Nebbiolo) sits Bardolino Chiaretto DOC.  The appellation only makes rosé.  Once it was a convenient by-product bled out to concentrate their reds.  But today Rondinella, Mollinara, and Corvina grapes (typical of Valpolicella, Amarone, and Bardolino) are grown separately.

Why? Acidity. Growers harvest Rondi and the Corvinas weeks before their reds in mid-September.  Alcohols also end up lower because of less sugar.  That makes for a brighter, tighter, and lighter wine.  You will want something refreshing and easy, when she asks when you got that tattoo.

Tonight’s Thirsty Thursday offering to mothers the world over is Santi’s “Infinito”, Rosé, Bardolino Chiaretto, Italy 2013:

Hi gorgeous!

Appearance: It’s pretty as all get out: a bright, fiery, clear rose quartz.

Aromas: Mild aromas of light kiwi, fresh cream, and strawberry ice.

Palate: Although dry with crystaline, mouthseeking acidity, and low 11.5% alcohol, the body does not dissappear.

Flavors: A nice round lump of white melon fruit drops on your tongue’s doorstop. Then flint, salt, strawberry, and lemon juice shred it apart like mail left to your neighbor’s dogs.

Ok, that metaphor went astray. But either way, Santi’s rosé enters pleasant and unsuspected then perks up to nab your attention.  There isn’t much meat to it.  But that’s its goal: to be bright and snappy and less than $15.

Drink it now, young, with maternal company, and/or food company like a mozzarella, tomato, arugula salad with a little parmesan, sashimi, or those fantastic cold finger sandwiches at high tea.  Happy Mother’s Day