What’s the Allure of Wines from Provence? Video with Jill Barth

Our guest this evening is a wine columnist for Forbes and a wine country travel expert for USA TODAY. She’s the founder and author of L’Occasion, an award-winning digital magazine that celebrates the ways we drink, make, and contemplate wine.

Watch previous episodes of the Wednesday Wining Show (WWS)  and find out who’s coming up next.

 

 

Jill Barth

 

I’m a writer focused on wine creators – with culture, food, community, ecology, and travel, pivotal to the stories in my contributor column at Forbes digital. I am a Provence Wine Master through the Wine Scholar Guild and received a fellowship to the Symposium for Professional Wine Writers.

I’m the founder and author of L’Occasion, a blog that honors the ways we drink, make, and contemplate wine. L’Occasion was awarded the Best Overall and Best Writing from the prestigious Wine Blog Awards and was a finalist for Millesima’s Blog Awards in food and wine pairing. I’m a wine country travel expert panelist and contributor for USA TODAY’s 10Best. My work has appeared in Decanter, Palate Press, Luxe Provence, Courrier International, Provence WineZine, and Perfectly Provence.

 

Connect with Jill:

Facebook
@Facebook

Twitter
@jillbarth

Instagram
@jillbarth

LinkedIn
@LinkedIn

 

How would you describe the rosé lifestyle?

How much of the recent popularity of rosé is due to trendy lifestyle marketing?

Why does Provence come to mind first, when it comes to rosé?

Why did Chateau d’Esclans’ entry level rosé, Whispering Angel, get so popular so quickly?

 

 

The Hamptons affluent New Yorkers where it’s known as “Hampton’s Gatorade.”

Is Provence the only region in the world where 100% of the rosé is made in a dry style?

Why are some people obsessed with getting the palest rosé? Does paler mean better?

Like smallest bubbles in champagne?

You can read all 98 comments here on Facebook:

 

The Center for Rosé Research in Provence in southeast France has codified rosé according to its hue. What’s the descriptor for the palest rosé? Darkest? Any in between those that are interesting?

Ballet slipper, onion skin, “œil de perdrix” (means partridge’s eye in French), referring to the pale pink colour of the eye of a partridge when it’s dying.

What should we look for on a bottle of Provençal rosé?

Côtes de Provence, the largest appellation with more than 20,000 hectares and segmented into four sub-appellations: Côtes de Provence Sainte-Victoire, Côtes de Provence Fréjus, Côtes de Provence La Londe and Côtes de Provence Pierrefeu.

 

 

Provence is the sunniest place in the whole of France.

How does the wind influence winemaking?

Tell us about the famous wind, the Mistral. How fast does it blow? How long? What does it do to the vineyards?

Is it this wind, said to drive people insane?

185 km/h (115 mph): usually blows during winter and spring, sometimes lasts more than a week.

 

 

How are rosé wines made in a more low touch fashion today than say 5 years ago?

Let’s go even further back in time: As France’s oldest wine region, how has Provence influenced viticulture globally? What specifically was developed there first?

The Phoeniceans settled there around 600 BCE.

Did the Greeks introduce winemaking to Provence, or rosé winemaking?

 

 

 

What were those wines like, in taste and colour?

These early wines were pale, made in a free-run fashion with a flash maceration.

You mention, that by the 2nd century BC, the Romans made an alliance and introduced red wines, but rosé still dominates. White and rosé wines were reserved for the aristocracy and clergy.

What are your favourite food pairings for rosé?

How about some unusual or weird ones?

What really doesn’t pair well with rosé?

 

 

 

Let’s turn now to wine trends more generally.

Why is there no better time to be a wine drinker than in 2019?

Access to new wines, technology improving: online buying and learning, virtual labels and more options for buying wine without leaving home, emergence of wine delivery services and grocery stores dropping of orders.

Greek, Austrian, Slovenian, Slovak and Portuguese wines get more popular? Why?

 

 

 

 

Are we getting too geeky and hipster with natural wine and grape names that no one can pronounce?

Might that make wine more intimidating?

Which regions offer the best value when it comes to wine?

Sparkling wine from new places. French crémant and Spanish cava, bubbles from Brazil, Chile, Australia and New Zealand are set to over-deliver. American sparkling wine producers, small-production, craft-style sparkling wines.

 

 

 

Red blends, Chardonnay and Riesling from the Columbia Valley in Washington state

Semillon, Chardonnay and Shiraz from Australia’s Hunter Valley

Uco Valley, Mendoza in Argentina Malbec

Pinot Noir Cru Beaujolais

off-beat areas in Greece, Austria and South America

German Riesling

 

 

 

 

French rosé from regions outside of Provence are more affordable, especially from Languedoc, Loire, Rhône Valley, Gascony and Bordeaux.

Why is the trend not so much about new wine regions in the US, but rather about evolution?

Regions knowing what they do best, soil, climate, grapes, methods.

 

 

 

How is the California wine industry dealing with extreme drought and temperature increases?

Replanting of different varieties in order reorient to climate shifts

How is land management changing?

How is wine a barometer for the way we live?