Robe — Between rosé and red — the pale ruby the Middle Ages called claret
redcurrant
cherry
rose
orange zest
Palate
A light red's fruit with a rosé's coolness; supple, faintly tannic
Ageing
1–3 years
Serving
10–12 °C
The ancestor. Medieval Bordeaux did not ship today's dark reds but a pale, briefly-macerated red — the wine England called "claret" and drank in staggering quantity: in good years of the fourteenth century, most of the wine England imported was this. The word survives in English to this day as the nickname for red Bordeaux.
Modern clairet, an official appellation since 1950, is its deliberate revival: a short two-or-three-day maceration on Merlot and the Cabernets, giving something between rosé and red — cherry fruit, a whisper of tannin, best cool. A small production, drunk young, and a six-century memory in a glass.