11 East Coast Rosés Worth Seeking Out

Mediocrity ruled the panel tasting, but these wines stood above their peers

Moving from my blog to Substack has been incredibly inspiring and motivating. It rejuvenated me when I considered completely retiring from my wine-writing side hustle. It’s also been extremely humbling and a great learning experience.

My most recent lesson? Don’t expect to keep up with tasting and writing in the late spring and early summer when both of your kids are shoulders-deep in club/travel sports.

This report is roughly a month late, so I apologize for that. Luckily, there is still a lot of rosé weather ahead — plus, you know how much I love rosé at Thanksgiving. It’s not nearly as seasonal a choice as many would have you believe.

Anyway — let’s get into it…

The 2024 Cork Report Rosé Panel Tasting

Panel Tasting Process & Notes

Earlier this year, the 2024 Cork Report rosé panel tasted nearly 40 East Coast rosés. I have always hesitated to create “best of” lists, but we identified 11 that stood out among their peers.

After an extended discussion about balance, marketability, and single-variety rosé versus blends, we couldn’t choose a single favorite, so you’ll see two listed below.

As a reminder, the tasting panel was this smart, thoughtful group — and me:

• Marin Brennan, Winemaker, Bedell Cellars

• Carlo DeVito, Author & Winemaker

• Gabriella Macari*, Director of Operations, Macari Vineyards

• Jocelyn Moodie, Owner, Tipsy Duck Wine & Spirits Co.

The Panel (L toR): Gabriella Macari, yours truly, Carlo DeVito, Marin Brennan, and Jocelyn Moodie

I’m going to mention context more than once here. For any tasting, there is context, and limitations to be considered. Gabriella summed them up nicely, so I’ll just quote her.

“We all knew and considered the limitations of the tasting, such as the fact that some of the rosés were just bottled. We discussed sitting down again, just for fun, towards the end of the summer to taste the progression of some examples. Marin and I agreed our rosés both taste the best the moment they are about to sell out. Another limitation of this tasting is the bias of comparing wines within each flight to each other. We all aimed to discuss each wine individually, but comparisons occasionally crept in.”

Some Other Thoughts on Process and the Tasting

• My threshold for “perfectly happy to drink this” is a bit lower for rosé than some other categories. If it’s fresh and fruity with good acidity, I’m most likely more than willing to drink it the way I drink most rosé — well-chilled and casually. These 11 wines were well above this imaginary personal threshold. These were the best of the best (there’s that word again). I guess I’m saying that the wines that didn’t make the cut for this list weren’t necessarily undrinkable, though more than a few were.

• Price was not a consideration when we decided if a wine was worth calling out, though there was plenty of conversation about the creeping price of rosé during the tasting. You’ll notice, however, that most of our favorites were $20 or a few dollars more.

• I know that many people—from producers to consumers—get caught up in what shade of pink (or copper or orange or whatever) a rosé is. I personally do not care as long as the wine tastes good.

• The notes below are mine, mixed with interesting thoughts from the other panelists. The scores at the bottom of each are not a composite of the panel’s scores however. They are mine.

• All photographs are courtesy of Mikhail Lipyanskiy Photography