2021 Chateau Simone Palette Rosé, Provence, France - MAG 1.5L

ABOUT THIS WINE

The Château Simone Rosé is a wine that belies the notion that rosés are simple wines to be drunk up young. We have indulged ourselves with 10-year old Château Simone Rosé and have marveled at the tenacity, vibrancy and complexity of this very serious wine. The blend is identical to the rouge: 45% Grenache, 30% Mourvèdre, 5% Cinsault, 20% Syrah, Castet, Manosquin, Carignan, Muscat Noir & Blanc. Aged in barrel, it is powerful and age-worthy with a steely character and a grey-tinted aura to the faded rose-petal robe.

ABOUT THIS PRODUCER

Château Simone is among the small handful of estates in the Provence region that are making something other than just light-hearted rosé.

Bandol, Cassis, Bellet, Les Baux and Palette are five appellations that form just a drop in the Provence wine bucket, but provide much of the region's top reds and whites (and yes, some rosé). Palette, an AOC of just 111 acres located just a few minutes south of Aix-en-Provence, benefits from limestone soils surrounding the base of the Ste.-Victoire mountain. Rougier's property, a 300-acre domaine that has been in his family for generations, has 57 acres of vines (just more than half the entire AOC) that sit amid the nooks and crannies of pine-covered hillsides, featuring north-facing terraces that ripen slowly and late despite basking in the Provencal sun.

Production from the estate totals about 8,300 cases annually, with 10 percent going to the U.S. Half the production is white, 40 percent red and the rest Rosé.