A Provence Rose with a Touch of Hollywood Glam

I tried to avoid writing about this last year, actually I did pretty well at not writing about anything at all but that's a different matter, and that is the now infamous Brangelina rose, Miraval, mainly because I thought I was a bit of a gimmick, especially at £20-£25 a bottle. Also because I was a fan of it's predecessor Chateau Miraval Pink Floyd, which was a stunningly crisp and delicate Provence rose.

Château Miraval is located in the village of Correns, which is just north Brigoles in the south of France, and produces white's under the Coteaux Varois appellation, and red and rose under the Cotes de Provence. Another claim to fame is that one of it's previous owners, the French jazz pianist Jacques Loussier installed a recording studio in the Chateau where artists such as Sting, The Cranberries and even the legendary Pink Floyd all recording there.

Moving back to the present day and the Chateau is now owned by Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie, wanting to produce the very best Provence rose they could, they enlisted the help of the Perrin Family from Chateau Beaucastel in the Rhone valley as their wine makers. This was actually quite interesting given that while the Perrin's bought an amazing reputation for producing wonderfulyl, big, rich powerful wines, they had never produced a rose.

For this amazing rose Marc Perrin, the winemaker has used a blend of Grenache, Cinsault, Syrah and Rolle, 95% of which was fermented in stainless steel to retain it's freshness, with the remaining 5% going in to oak barrels, which just adds that little bit more complexity.

In the glass it had this wonderfully delicate pink colour, with quite pronounced aromas of wild strawberries, fresh herbs, rose, citrus and a touch of steely minerality coming through. On the palate you got all the fruit right at the start with this wonderfully refreshing soft acidity, made first think of wild strawberries and cream. You then started to get the citrus and fresh herbs come through on the palate with a real sense of a steely minerality to the wine, which I have to say was just fantastic.

Well, what do I think of this wine, I have to say, to start with I did think it might be very much of a gimmick, but I have to take my hat off to Marc Perrin the winemaker and say, bravo. This is such a beautifully crafted wine with all the flavours and acidity beautifully in balance with one another, I can also see why it made it into the top 100 wines of last year. Which also leads me to say that if you see one, buy it, as I can't imagine it lasting too long!