Winemaker Notes
Pair with salads, canapés, grilled white meats, fish and shellfish, sushi and Asian cuisine, fine vegetarian foods.
Professional Ratings
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Wine & Spirits
British transplant Stephen Cronk runs this brand, culling grenache and syrah from sustainably minded farmers near Cotignac, where he's based. It's floral and friendly, honeysuckle notes mingling with white-pepper scents and a juicy pear succulence to the fruit.
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Wilfred Wong of Wine.com
A darling rosé, the light-pink colored 2016 Mirabeau en Provence Pure exhibits bright red fruit, savory spices, and dried herbs. The wine's palate is full and rich and leads into a finish that is dry, yet easy. Pair with fresh salmon and tuna sashimi. (Tasted: March 24, 2017, San Francisco, CA)
Whether it’s playful and fun or savory and serious, most rosé today is not your grandmother’s White Zinfandel, though that category remains strong. Pink wine has recently become quite trendy, and this time around it’s commonly quite dry. Since the pigment in red wines comes from keeping fermenting juice in contact with the grape skins for an extended period, it follows that a pink wine can be made using just a brief period of skin contact—usually just a couple of days. The resulting color depends on grape variety and winemaking style, ranging from pale salmon to deep magenta.
Cotes de Provence is an extensive but valuable appellation that includes vineyards bordering the main Provencal appellations. Its sites vary from subalpine hills, which receive the cooling effects of the mountains to the north, to the coastal St-Tropez, a region mainly influenced by the warm Mediterranean sunshine.
Here the focus is on quality rosé, as it defines four fifths of the region’s wines. Following in the rosé footsteps, a lot of new effort is going into the region’s red production as well. A new generation has turned its focus on high quality Grenache, Syrah, Cinsault and Carignan. Cotes de Provence white wines, which represent a miniscule part of the region as far as volume, are nonetheless worthy of consideration and can include any combination of Clairette, Semillon, Ugni Blanc and Vermentino.