HEARTY MEAL WITH SOME SPICE
Fritters pair brilliantly with Viognier
The rush to rose continues unabated in North America, making it difficult for wineries to say no to pink, the latest cash cow in wine.
The ability to turn last year’s crop into cold hard cash within eight months, unlike with its red and white cousins, is almost irresistible. Add to that a market swarming to drink pink with seemingly no questions asked (it’s known as the Gatorade of the Hamptons) has produced a landslide of wines to choose from.
It doesn’t mean it’s all good, but the quality of modern rose is very different from 20 years ago when white Zinfandel ruled the market.
France has long been the poster child for the rose category, Provence in particular, but that reign is coming to an end.
The rest of the world is closing in quickly on the elegant, almost colourless Provencal style and its subtle flavours that have enamoured so many for so long.
It’s possible rose has jumped the shark in 2018, but copying well-made pink wines and actually making equally fine examples are two very different things. My guess is that as time passes the roses of Provence and Southern France will be joined by other interesting takes on pink wine from around the world. I can think of a half-dozen B.C. wines that could fit the category today.
When it comes to the modern rush to rose I think about three French men who have played a pivotal role in expanding the market.
When I first met Sacha Lichine he had recently inherited Chateau Prieure-Lichine in 1989.
I was wandering around the commune of Margaux in Bordeaux at a time when visiting famed chateaux was by written appointment, and none were open on Sunday.
There was a sandwich board on the side of the road with “open” scribbled on it. We pulled in. Inside the deserted office we found Lichine reading a book.
When I asked about the sign and being open on a Sunday he said Bordeaux was going to have to change if it was to survive.
It wasn’t long before a large inheritance tax forced him to sell the noble site and completely change his wine life.
In 2006 he bought Chateau d’Esclans, a 13th-century estate that included 100-year-old Cinsault and Grenache vines.
Not long after he hired the retired Patrick Leon, the former winemaker at Chateau Mouton Rothschild, and they set out to make the world’s best and most expensive rose.
Lichine’s calling card is Whispering Angel. If my math is right, the 260,000-case Whispering Angel, at an average $33 a bottle, translates to just over a $100-million cash crop. He also makes Garrus at d’Esclans, certainly among the top three most expensive roses in the world.
The Perrin family was making a tasty La Vielle Ferme Rose to complement their famous Chateauneuf du Pape when they took on a project with actors Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie.
Chateau Miraval ($28.99), like the famous movie stars, captured the imagination of the public, adding more worldwide interest to the category, not to mention boosting the La Vielle Ferme image. They now sell a “party on,” three-litre box of their original La Vielle Ferme pink for $39.99 in B.C.
The Perrin family has recently stated that despite the breakup of the Hollywood duo, it’s still business as usual at Miraval.
A third player is the magnetic Gerard Bertrand. He has been making some terrific wines in the Languedoc of late, and while he gets little love in this market, his Cote des Roses ($24.99), sold in a bottle cleverly designed to look like a bunch of roses, is a global hit. Bertrand is also partnering with American rocker Jon Bon Jovi and his son Jesse to help alleviate the shortage of rose in the Hamptons, where Bon Jovi spends a lot of his spare time. The new Bon Jovi pink, Diving into Hampton Water, is flying off the shelves in New York and New Jersey.
It’s obvious you don’t need to be famous to make a great rose, but it helps when it comes to selling your wine worldwide. Today our weekend wine picks explore some favourite international labels we have recently reviewed in B.C.
Don’t worry, in a future column we will turn our attention to B.C. to see how far we have come in our mastery of the pink drink that has captured the imagination of a whole new generation of wine drinkers. Stay tuned.