THERE are two ways of making rosé. Both are designed to extract just enough colour from the skins of red grapes to stain the juice pink and to impart flavour to the wine.
The first way is to crush the grapes, as if making a red wine, but instead of steeping the juice with the skins for several days or more, it is drawn off after a matter of hours. The other way is to press the grapes slowly, so that the juice has just enough time to colour. It’s this second way that is favoured in Provence.
Rosé is what Provence does best, probably because no other style of wine tastes better under the blue skies of a southern French summer among the hills covered with wild aromatic herbs, or beside the glistening Mediterranean. The goal of every true Provençal winemaker is to produce rosé of the most delicate hue possible, yet with enough flavour to partner almost anything from seafood to vegetables dipped in the local, pungent, garlic mayonnaise – aïoli.
In 1955, the leading producers of the Côtes de Provence were recognised by the soubriquet of “Grand Cru”, like the grandest châteaux of Bordeaux. I went to visit one of the 18 in production today, Château Sainte Marguerite, which sits proudly behind an archway of palm trees, at La Londe, on the coast between Toulon and Saint Tropez.
It was bought 35 years ago by Jean Pierre Fayard. He now manages the estate together with his children and their spouses. His son-in-law, Arnaud Ramecourt who handles marketing, showed me round and introduced their range of wines of which, with some justification, he is hugely proud.
Over the years, the estate has grown from the four hectares originally bought by Jean Pierre to around 70 hectares, joined in 1999 by the historic Château Hermitage Saint Martin at Cuers, which is about 20km inland and has been lovingly and painstakingly restored by Jean-Pierre’s son Enzo, one of three winemakers in the family.
It lies on a broad expanse of clay and limestone, very different from the friable schistose soils at Château Sainte Marguerite. The organic regime used on both sites maximises their individual character, but it has proven more of a challenge at Cuers where the underground springs that help bring life to the clay-rich soil sometimes introduce sufficient humidity to threaten mildew and rot. At La Londe, sea breezes keep the vines well aerated, where the exceptional quality of the rosé was further recognised two years ago by a new appellation: La Londe, Côtes de Provence.
The distinct individuality of the wine from the two sites truly is remarkable: they provide striking examples of just how much soil and site nuance the taste of wine. Symphonie rosé 2010, made from a plot of vines on a steep slope of south-facing schist, just two kilometres from the sea, is a blend of Grenache with Cinsault, the latter planted back in 1936. It’s deliciously fresh and delicate with a distinct smell of the herbs from the surrounding garrigue. It also has wonderfully fresh crunchy acidity, rare in rosé from Provence.
Château Hermitage Saint Martin IKON rosé 2010 is also a blend of Grenache and Cinsault, but with about 30% Syrah. It’s also very pale (another blend from slightly younger vines is so delicately tinted that it’s hard to tell it’s rosé at all), but with an enormous depth of flavour, gamey and spicy, with a lingering salty minerality. It’s the soil and site, not the Syrah that makes the difference.