Back in the pink

Not so long ago, it would have been hard to conceive of a more hopeless marketing prospect than Mateus Rosé. One of the first brands to please the innocent palates of Britain's neophyte wine-drinkers way back when, like so many precocious successes, it peaked too soon.

Not so long ago, it would have been hard to conceive of a more hopeless marketing prospect than Mateus Rosé. One of the first brands to please the innocent palates of Britain's neophyte wine-drinkers way back when, like so many precocious successes, it peaked too soon.

Consigned to the same dread bin as Hirondelle and Blue Nun before being routed by Chardonnay, it suffered the ultimate insult of being labelled "naff". Worse - if worse was possible - came shortly before the Iraq war, when it was revealed as Saddam's favourite tipple. At least we could be sure that it was not to loot the wine cellars of those infamous palaces that we went to war.

Like most things that go prematurely out of fashion and assume an air of villainy, though, Mateus Rosé is back. Along with Branston Pickle and porridge, this Portuguese rosé is so last century that it is storming back into fashion.

The generation of sophisticates that associated those flask-shaped bottles with parental birthday dinners or Saturday-night steak and chips at the Berni Inn has rediscovered the pink wine in its true habitat, the Mediterranean. Caressed by the sunshine and lulled by sea breezes, we have dared to say the unsayable when asked: "rouge, blanc ou rosé?"

And we have found that, in the right surroundings and suitably chilled, rosé is really not bad - in fact, not bad at all. So we started bringing it back home, only to find it on our supermarket shelves, imported from France, Italy, Spain and Portugal.

Welcome back, Mateus Rosé, all is forgiven!