36 Bottles of Wine by Paul Zitarelli

Author:Paul Zitarelli
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Sasquatch Books
Published: 2018-09-17T16:00:00+00:00

Côtes de Provence Rosé

While we’ve been patiently glugging down bottles of last year’s Rosé (see this page) and domestic Rosé (see this page), winemakers in the south of France have been bottling, consolidating, and shipping their own beautiful bottles of pink. Now, in July, container ships groaning under the weight of pallet after pallet of Provençal Rosé are arriving at ports up and down both coasts, ready to release a pink torrent onto a populace that just can’t seem to get enough.

Rosé from Provence has been on a multiyear major upward trend in American consumption. In 2010, we drank something like one million liters of the stuff. By 2015, the number was eight million liters and growing. Along the way, pervasive old beliefs about Americans and Rosé—that we wouldn’t drink bone-dry Rosé, that American men wouldn’t drink Rosé, period—were exposed as inane retrograde bullshit.

Good for us for recognizing quality and embracing it! While our domestic Rosé trade has made major strides in recent years, Provence is unquestionably the beating heart of Rosé production in the world. The best versions are made from thin-skinned Grenache and Cinsault, perfectly suited to impart a pale-pink hue to each Rosé they touch. Flavors combine fruit notes (berry and melon and citrus) with minerality and a refreshing verdant edge, something like green strawberries muddled with chopped cucumbers. The wines are low in alcohol and high in mouthwatering acidity. On a hot July day, that first sip of cold Provençal Rosé is as bracing as a cold gust from the famous mistral winds that scour Provence’s vineyards with alpine air.

We Yanks are not the first to be attracted to this sun-soaked Mediterranean corner of France. The Romans made it their first province outside the confines of Italy, calling it provincial nostra (“our province”). You can almost forgive the lack of naming creativity (akin to the Brits calling the United States “our colony”) because of the clear affection reflected in the name. This beautiful blessed place, this is our province; keep your grubby mitts off it. By the time the Romans arrived (around 125 BC), the region already had a four-centuries-old winemaking tradition courtesy of the Greeks who predated them, and who seemed to have an uncanny ability to spot the right vineyard sites in every clime, like veteran teachers picking out the most promising students on day one of class.

The Greeks founded present-day Marseille (then called Massalia), and that city remains the heart of gustatory Provence. The most famous dish of the region—bouillabaisse—is a fish stew that seems like it was developed specifically with Rosé pairing in mind. Those bony, funky little Mediterranean fish overpower many a white wine and taste dissonant next to most reds; Rosé is the Goldilocks. If you can’t slurp bouillabaisse and Rosé at a quayside Marseille bistro, if all the responsibilities of adult life—jobs, kids, neurotic cats—make a trip like this impossible, fear not: the container ship that began its journey alongside that Marseille quay is heading west, at speed.

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