Looking through rosé-tinted glasses
Rosé is one of the world's oldest wine styles — shaped by ancient Greece, refined by Rome, perfected in Provence, and finally restored to the prestige it always deserved.
Ancient Origins
There is a tendency to treat rosé as a modern invention — a product of the 21st century's appetite for accessible, summer-friendly wine. In fact, rosé is one of the oldest styles of wine in existence, and its history reveals as much about the evolution of winemaking as it does about changing tastes.
The earliest known versions trace back to ancient Greece, where winemakers would crush red and white grapes together by foot and ferment the juice in pithoi — large ceramic vessels buried in the earth. The result was a pale, lightly tannic pink wine, produced not by deliberate design but by the practicalities of winemaking before colour became an end in itself. It was also considered civilised to dilute wine with water — which lightened the colour further and made the pale pink hue seem natural and appropriate.
The Provençal Legacy
When the Romans arrived in Provence in the second century BC, rosé was already a valued commodity. The Romans, skilled traders and prolific planters, helped establish Provence as the heartland of fine pink wine — a legacy that has endured more than two thousand years. Today, Provence produces the benchmark against which all other rosé is measured.
Provençal rosé is something distinct: pale salmon in colour, mineral and precise on the palate, with notes of wild strawberry, white peach, citrus peel, and Provençal herbs. It captures the essence of Mediterranean living — leisurely, sun-drenched, and quietly luxurious. The best examples pair beautifully with seafood, grilled fish, summer salads, and long evenings in good company.
The benchmark of Provence
Whispering Angel Rosé, Château d'Esclans
The wine that helped redefine modern rosé — pale, precise, and unmistakably Provençal. Notes of wild strawberry, peach, and Provençal herbs, with a mineral freshness that makes it one of the most elegant rosés in the world. Best enjoyed very cold, in the company of good food and good conversation.
A Reputation Lost and Regained
The middle decades of the 20th century were not kind to rosé. A wave of commercial sweet pink wines — produced quickly and cheaply to meet growing demand — achieved enormous sales but changed the perception of the category. Rosé came to be associated with sweetness, simplicity, and a lack of seriousness. The damage to its reputation was real and lasting.
The recovery began in Provence in the early 2000s. A new generation of producers — investing in better technology, lower yields, and an understanding of what made their pale, dry rosés special — began producing wines of remarkable quality and consistency. Estates like Château d'Esclans, with its Whispering Angel, led the charge into export markets and proved that Provençal rosé could command prices previously unheard of for pink wine.
Rosé Today
Today, rosé has fully reclaimed its place at the table. The finest examples — from Provence, from Corsica, from the Loire and from Spain — are taken seriously by wine lovers who would once have dismissed pink wine entirely. The category continues to grow in both volume and quality, with producers around the world finding new ways to express the particular character of their grapes and landscapes in shades of pale salmon, copper, and blush.
Whether enjoyed as a thirst-quenching aperitif, paired with refined cuisine, or simply opened on a warm evening with no particular occasion, rosé has earned its prestige. A glass of good rosé is not just a nod to summer — it is a tribute to thousands of years of winemaking heritage, carried gracefully into the present.