Master of Wine: PROVENCE ROSE'

If you're a fan of rosé wine, you're in the right place. In this video, I'll focus on the 2023 vintage with an emphasis on the wines from Provence. For many, this is the benchmark standard in rosé. In addition, I'll include a tasting of a couple of the very best wines that I've had from the new vintage. I'll also provide some shopping tips that should prove helpful when you're out looking for rosé. Hi, I'm Bob Pulinski, Master of Wine. Thank you very much for clicking on today's video. In late winter of 2024, I had the chance to taste more than 100 rosés from the 2023 vintage. This was through some trade shows, wine competitions, and through some work events. Now, keep in mind those rosés from the northern hemisphere, the fruit was harvested in the fall of 2023. Many of the wines will be released onto the market in spring of 2024. To set the stage, rosés experienced an amazing resurgence over the last 25 years or so. Much of that has been driven through the regions in southern France, none more so than Provence. There, about 90% of the wine produced is rosé. Now, there are 12 permitted grape varieties, but only a handful are truly relevant. Cinseau is one that I'll discuss a little later in this video. Others are Syrah, Grenache, Morvedra, and the other is Roll, which is generally used in small amounts. It's a white grape variety. In other places of the world, it's called Vermentino, but it's there to give the wine some freshness and some lively, zesty acidity. Generally speaking, when you're buying Provence rosé, you want the very current vintage. Generally, these are wines that do not age well, with just a few exceptions. With rosé, there's a whole wide range of styles that are produced. Wines like Cerro Suelo de Abruzzo, Taval, many of the Spanish rosés, all of these could have their own separate video. Here, we're focusing on Provence, and the style there generally is rather consistent. Most of the wines will have a pale pink color, and this is derived through just a very short period of time of maceration, that being the grape skins in contact with the juice. The wines are generally fermented at cool temperatures to retain a lot of the primary fruit characteristics, so the wines are bright, fresh, they have a vibrancy to them, and also, generally speaking, the wines will be fermented dry. The bottle styles used for rosé, specifically those from Provence, is like nothing else in the wine world. This is a trend that started decades ago, and has only become increasingly more creative in recent years. In some cases, the bottle itself will cost more than the wine in the bottle. It's also worth noting that most rosé is shipped in clear glass bottles. These are especially susceptible to the effects of UV light, as opposed to green or brown glass. Excessive UV light can tap down the freshness and bright fruit character of a wine. The easy fix is store your bottles in a cool, dark place. Before I get into the tasting, a bit on food and wine pairing. This is typically not a big part of my videos, as I think there are way too many rules on this topic, but here it merits a bit of a deeper look. Rosé is commonly viewed as a replacement for white wine. Beautiful examples have a fresh, bright, lifted fruit character, but some of the fruit characteristics, along with the slight phenolic component, are more akin to red wine. This is the perfect pairing partner with richer seafood dishes, along with fish stews like cioppino or bouillabaisse or alike, along with some crusty bread for dipping into the sauce. But for me, one of the greatest food and wine combinations of all time is Provence Rosé with a cornmeal-crusted fried green tomato with garlic aioli. Add some greens on the side, and suddenly all is right in this world. Hey, I'd appreciate hearing from you. Post your favorite rosé and food pairings in the comments section below. First up is the 2023 Chef of the Turn Inspiration. This has a $20 suggested retail price. For me, this was the first time trying this wine, as I had not had any previous vintages from this producer. This wine is made from 50% Grenache, 30% Cinsault, and 20% Syrah. Fairly typical blend for that part of the world. I think the Cinsault is the magic here. The Cinsault is what gives the wine the freshness and lift. Color is pale, just as expected. This, again, would be very common with Provence Rosé. The aroma, telltale signs of that red fruit. A watermelon, strawberry characteristic. There's also a bit of a grapefruit character and some slight floral tones. It just smells wonderful. It has that fresh brightness to it. On the palate, very nice weight. There's good acidity, and this is one of the telltale signs that you'll find from rosés from this part of the world. But bright, lively, very clean. There's good purity and that zesty acidity. All of those things come together really well. The wine's just medium bodied. I see in the back label, they chose 12.5, so actually a bit lower on the alcohol side, but the finish is very dry. There's great length, really a solid rosé from start to finish. I'm a big fan of this wine. If you've not yet subscribed to my channel, please do it right now. Also, hit that like button and definitely hit the notification bell. That way, you'll be kept up to speed on all things happening here. Hey, it's much appreciated. Thank you. Next up is the 2023 Ultimate Provence Rosé with a suggested retail price of $24. Note that both wines tasted in today's video are under the ownership, although the styles are very different. This wine is 30% each of Grenache, Syrah, Cinco, along with 10% Roll. And again, Roll is often used to heighten the acidity and make the wine a little fresher and brighter. In terms of appearance, this is just spot on. This is textbook of what Provence Rosé will look like. It has that pale, very vibrant color to it. The aroma on this is just phenomenal. Red fruit galore. There's that strawberry-cherry characteristic, a little pomegranate note. There's some spiciness to this wine as well. It's not some just simply fruit-driven. There's some nuance and layers to this wine. The intensity on the aroma is excellent as well. On the palate, this is flat-out gullible. It's fresh. It's vibrant. The fruit character is just wonderful on it. That slight spicy characteristic carries through as well. Plenty of weight on the palate, and the acidity is bright and fresh. So, the wine has a very lifted characteristic to it. Everything here is balanced just as it should. This is Provence Rosé at a very high level. If you can find this, I don't think you'll be disappointed. This is really a sensational bottle of wine. This is something meant to be drank very fresh, though, so this is definitely not one to keep. Love this wine. I hope you can find it. It's definitely worth a search. I hope this video provides some helpful guidance when you're out shopping for Rosé. I had two gems here in today's video. I'll provide a little added detail in the description below, so please check that out. I'll be drinking something interesting tonight. I hope you are as well, and please stop back again before too long.