Rosé from the South of France is among today’s most exciting wine categories.getty Anybody who checks out or looks into rosé has likely consulted the writing of Elizabeth Gabay MW. She’s the author of Rosé: Comprehending the pink wine revolution and her highly expected brand-new book Rosés of Southern France, composed in partnership with Ben Bernheim, is out now. Bernheim is Gabay’s son, a twenty-something sommelier, author, and red wine market veteran who went back to the family
house in eastern Provence in the early days of the pandemic. During this time he began working with Gabay, investigating and tasting wine. As the months ticked by, the duo had tasted around 1,000 rosé wines and documented tasting notes for 850 of them– all from Southern France. These notes became a digital guide.” However by the end of the guide we found we had more concerns than answers,”states Gabay. They wondered about taste variation and typicity, and contemplated over the sometimes-vague tasting sheets and winemaking notes that accompanied each bottle. And this is how the new book was born, birthed from a curiosity to deeply understand the rosés of Southern France. Gabay is the noteworthy white wine industry source, even prior to this book, on critical thinking of rosé from around the world. Working in Provence because the mid 1980s, she’s not one to make assumptions about color, age-worthiness, vinification approaches, origins, potential, or style of rosé. This book– covering Provence, the Rhone Valley, and Languedoc– also consists of an instructional introduction to Southern French rosé as well as vintage reporting and context on aging rosé red wine. Interest in rosé red wines from the South of France has escalated in the last few years, though the region has cultivated this design because antiquity. According to BevAlc Insights’ 2022 Rosé Wine Category Projection by Drizly,”pink bottles from France– particularly
Provence and elsewhere in southern France– continue to dominate sales, holding 63 percent of rosé share on Drizly. “And there’s no indication of this pattern slowing down. According to this same report,”continued item innovation means customers will likely be seeking new designs”of rosé in both still and sparkling categories in the future. This is a reality that Gabay and Bernheim have expected.”Naturally we understand that with rosé being the most exciting wine category around right now– continuously establishing and changing– a book will not suffice,” states Gabay, meaning a forthcoming 2nd edition. On the other hand the website pink.wine is where fans and readers can keep up
with the authors and gain access to continuous material and research about rosé white wine. The book is likewise rich with initial photography and maps.”We chose to consist of as numerous maps as possible– challenging as very few maps exist for this region and less for rosé, so Ben created a number of the maps himself,” states Gabay.” We wanted pictures of terroir to show where the white wine comes from, to go over the soils, grapes, winemaking,
and whether excellent rosés could age.”All that and more is waiting within.