It's the summer of rosé, with the pink stuff flying off local shelves.
That's a sure sign that Minnesotans are becoming savvier shoppers on the wine front, no longer unsure about whether all rosés are sweet like white zinfandel.
Another great sign: Consumers are asking a lot more questions at wine shops, leaving behind their Upper Midwest reserve in a quest for just the right bottle.
Here's what inquiring minds want to know about, according to local wine merchants:
Oak: This works both ways, particularly with chardonnay, says Bill Abrahamson, senior wine buyer for Top Ten Liquors. "The big, rich and buttery chardonnays, that crowd is still active. And we also have the other crowd, 'I'm looking for no oak at all, something nice and crisp,' " he said. "Both of those conversations happen daily."
Michael Grabner, manager of the Kowalski's wine shop in Eagan, said the market has self-corrected, that the overly oaky red wines of the past have "kind of been filtered out. Whether it's better fruit or better techniques, [wineries are] not hiding behind the barrels. At the lower price points you don't see heavy oak notes, but at $20 to $50, there's some finessed oak usage.
"But it's part of the wine, not the wine. I don't think we'll see the extremes we did where it was like licking a canoe paddle."
Organic: "We get a lot of organic, sustainable talk," said Bob Anderson, an owner of Stinson Wine, Beer and Spirits in northeast Minneapolis. "We explain that we don't have a lot of certified organic wines, but we do have a lot of family wineries, where people are more careful about the environment because they live there. Especially in Europe, where they've been making it that way for generations and generations but not going through all the certification."