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Wednesday Wine Women: @masdeladame
Anne Poniatowski and Caroline Missoffe, two sisters, decided in 1995 to leave Paris and come back to the family vineyard, becoming the 4th generation at Mas de la Dame.
Kylie Minogue 2020 Côtes du Provence Rosé
Celeb wines do bring something valuable to the wine trade – and that’s their fans. An excited, engaged, bustling marketplace is good for everybody and these wines will be the catalyst for opening up the world of wine for many consumers. Kylie has one of the most popular wine ranges at Morrisons, where her 2020 Côtes de Provence rosé will be stocked exclusively.
A Tour of Provence with Château Léoube
It was in the summer of 1997 when the Bamfords (from the Cotswolds in England) first set eyes on Château Léoube in Provence. If its scenic beauty is anything to go by, it must have been love at first sight. The image of rusty orange earth, blanketed by lush vegetation, meeting the expanse of blue ocean calms me, even from the page I’m looking at. I am reminded of the utopian Tracy Island from Thunderbirds, as I study the crowd of umbrella pines on the peninsula, seeing how they lean over the edge, peering curiously into the sea. I’m sure if that was the view before my eyes, my heart would have skipped a beat too.
'What is Provence to you?', asks Château Gassier with their new Esprit Gassier 2019 vintage
Provence rosé is undoubtedly a style, but within that style, you have a sea of different expressions. This is no one-dimensional wine. You have the fun, flirty, pink-frilly-knickers kind; you have the fresh, racy, sea winds whipping-your-hair-back-and-forth kind; you have the classy, exquisitely-mannered kind, with hidden mineral depths. Esprit Gassier 2019 can be all things to all, but to me, it is the latter.
Tasting note: Fleur de Mer Rosé
Ah! The summer is here and this very bottle makes me think of skipping across a lavender-flecked hillside, white dress billowing, hair flowing behind – perhaps I am carrying a basket of flowers or – even better – freshly picked herbs to make dinner with later in my stone-cobbled kitchen overlooking the sea? How Provençal indeed! It’s amazing what a label can do and this one has a dreamy, curly script across it, spelling ‘Fleur de Mer’, flower of the sea. And, if you ever visit the website of this wine, you are greeted with pretty watercolour paintings of lavender loveliness.