Les Clans

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Natural Cork

14.0%

75cl

86% Grenache, 12% Rolle, 2% Tibouren

It won’t surprise readers to know that our Rosé wine entry grows with every year that passes (we judged almost 800 dry and medium-dry still pink wines this year), yet the Côtes de Provence archetype still tends to set the rosé benchmark for style desiderata -- and makes a good case for being the C21’s most commercially successful wine style. The category is always closely fought – and always tough to judge, since we’re not looking for power, concentration, depth or electric balance, but for subtlety, understatement, nuance, creaminess and drinkability. This year’s Best In Show example has it all. It’s a delicate peach-pink in colour, with a haunting aromatic profile that mixes cream, white almond, peach and gardenia notes with pastel finesse. On the palate, it is deeper than many of its peers to the point where you could almost say ‘concentrated’, and perhaps shows brighter acidity than some of our previous winners. That cream, though, naps and envelops all, and the white almond depth fuses admirably with the wine’s vinosity to provide the dominant structural frame, rather than relying on acidity. Is there even a hint of green olive? Maybe; maybe not; it’s Provence rosé, after all. Hints and whispers are all.