Like many who started their drinking careers in the late Seventies, I grew up – and threw up – on Mateus Rosé. I’ve still got the bottle lamps to prove it (in the attic somewhere, along with my flares and cheesecloth shirts). In those days, rosé was as naff and as cheap as could be and not only would no self-respecting wine lover touch it, no self-respecting winemaker would produce it.
How times have changed! Pink is no longer the rinky-dink drink it once was. Sales have rocketed over the past year or so and show no signs of slowing down. Wine lovers have cottoned on to the fact that it’s hip to drink rosé and winemakers have cottoned on to the fact that it’s worth their while making top-quality examples.
Nobody has had greater success in this field than Sacha Lichine, whose avowed intent it is to make the best rosés in the world, helped in no small measure by Patrick Léon, former head winemaker at Château Mouton-Rothschild.
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