Wines of the week: Rosés to drink now

Apologies in advance to those expecting sunshine and decent temperatures this weekend – every time this column chooses to discuss anything related to warm-weather drinking, it seems a signal for a cool, rainy spell. Refraining from such themes over the last two bank holidays, however, ensured gorgeous sunshine for all…

Keeping fingers crossed and in the hope that record-breaking May might be followed by flaming June, I’m going to risk saying something: it is now time for rosé. Which, for my money, must only really be drunk when the bottle is ice cold and the day properly warm. And, really, you also need a vine-covered terrace or harbourside seat and the bobbing of boats on a twinkly, blue-green sea. Or your garden.

And specifically Provençal rosés, which, over the past few years have come to dominate the market. In 2007 the region exported 5 million litres, last year it was almost 30 million. Defining what has become the Provençal style is easy: housed often in elegant, carefully labelled bottles, these are wines that are pale to very pale in colour, bone dry and usually made from some combination of syrah, cinsault, mourvèdre, carignan and/or grenache: grapes that spell spice and vibrant red berry fruits and can be surprisingly complex, with green and dried herbs, orange peel and sometime citrus, grapefruit, pomegranate and tangerine flavours.

The consistency and quality is generally high: as with all rosés, these are straightforward, easy to drink, often relatively low alcohol – around 12-13 ABV – wines, no need for ageing or oak and best drunk young, either with or without food, and are versatile enough to accompany most fish and Mediterranean foods, even some roast white meats.

They handle chilli-spiked food well and for some are a good match for Oriental and Indian foods, although, like drinking them in cool weather, it’s not my personal preference. To my mind they are somehow best of all when there is pink in the food itself: tomatoes, red peppers, prawns, langoustines, crab and lobster; they are sublime with the fish soup/stew bouillabaisse and its accompaniments (rouille and aioli) and its variants around the Med.

Despite the omnipresent style, there are subtle variations between different producers and in the proportions of grapes the use. Near Mont Saint Victoire, Guy Negrel makes organic wines of pristine, pure paleness, using an equal blend of grenache, cinsault and syrah: the entry version, Mas de Cadenet Arbaude Côtes de Provence 2017 (£8.50 until June 24, normally £9.95, thewinesociety.com) is very dry and a terrific screw-topped bargain for your next picnic or barbecue while the Mas de Cadenet Sainte Victoire Côtes De Provence 2017 (£12.95 fromvineyardsdirect.com) is a slightly more refined version for the dinner table.

North of the port of Toulon, the Coteaux Varois also produces great roses, such those from a 200-year-old estate now run by a Bordeaux winemaking family: the Chateau d’Ollières Coteaux Varois de Provence 2017 (£12.75 josephbarneswines.com; £13 ewwines.co.uk) is mainly grenache and cinsault, very dry and spicy with a deceptively intense finish.

Although somehow the rosés of Provence seem quintessentially French, at least one Brit has taken them on at their own game, with considerable success. In less than 10 years, the fashionably bottled wines of Mirabeau, created by former businessman Stephen Cronk and his wife Jeany, who left southwest London for Cotignac, in the Var in the heart of Provence, have won many awards – the style is benchmark Provence. The Mirabeau Pure 2017 (£13.99 waitrose.com; ocado.com) is a grenache/syrah blend packed with summer berry fruits and with a complexity that belies its paleness, while the delicately refreshing sparkling version, Mirabeau En Provence La Folie NV (£13.99 Waitrose.com), launched only last year, is a great celebration wine for summer. Sainsbury’s also has their top of the range Mirabeau Etoile 2016 (£16 sainsburys.com), which is probably the one for the lobster or crab.

Much of the impetus to take rosé from being a fairly cheap and cheerful summer quaffer into a more upmarket zone – the whole fancy bottle/pale but interesting thing – came from Chateau d’Esclans, an ancient Provençal estate taken over by Sacha Lichine from the great Bordeaux family, who injected some of that region’s glamour and sales rocketed, making it allegedly the biggest-selling rosé in the world. The elegant and precisely made Chateau d’Esclans Whispering Angel is widely available priced somewhere between £17 and £20 and is excellent for special occasions. And now they have created a more entry level wine, the crisply refreshing Palm By Whispering Angel (£14.95 fromvineyardsdirect.com) although the label and marginally darker hue suggests an image slightly more Club Tropicana than Côte d’Azur.

Where else can you find a quality pale rosé in a glamorous bottle, but at bargain prices? On the shelves of budget supermarket Aldi, where the Exquisite Collection Côte de Provence Rosé, priced at just £6.69, sold out last year after winning several awards in blind tastings and this year’s allocation, Aldi say, has already sold out. But never mind, they have a replacement winging its way over from France: the equally excellent, strawberry and raspberry inflected Fleurs de Prairie Côtes de Provence Rosé (£7.29 aldi.co.uk), which should hit the stores and be available online from 9 July. Form a queue now…