What does "Provence" suggest in your mind?

But that fame in France is because the French are the most avid consumers of rose wines, which are the specialty of Provence, Eve.

When I was in retail in Texas (years ago) I brought in some Provencal wines to see if I could stimulate some sales. Didn't work. The wines were okay, but didn't stand out very well in the forest of competition. Pretty pallid, actually.

Mind you, this was long before the entrepreneurial folks who moved into Provence with an eye to making it a bigger player on the wine scene, and the standout estates that have since developed.

Mind you, this was long before the entrepreneurial folks who moved into Provence with an eye to making it a bigger player on the wine scene, and the standout estates that have since developed.

What do you think of the rose de Provence you can find in a regular French supermarket at around 5 euros (it would sell in the States for $8-10)? I'm not talking about prestigious estates such as Tempier or Peyrassol but a nice typical rose wine served on your white meat during the winter and your barbecue in the summer: fruity, well balanced, light and refreshing - the one I enjoy.

And on personal level,there's great confusion in the rose world between Provence and Provins roses.

I hope you won't mind a little vocabulary session. Provence is an area in the South East of France, near the Italian border and including the French Riviera (St Tropez, Cannes, Nice) as well as Luberon and Alpilles. It produces rosé wines (the e of rosé has an accent on it but I don't know if you can see it).

Provins is a small medieval city in the East of Paris famous for its beautiful roses. It's gorgeous in the summer when all the flowers are blooming.

Hope it helps!

Tad late getting here! I think Peter M and rose.
There is a lousy selection of wines from Provence in my area of Alberta altho` I am a Domaine Sorin fan. I have always enloyed the selection when visiting the UK.

the history is marvelous (though depressing) in that region--the area nearest Cathar.

Pedantry alert! The Cathars were in Languedoc, around Minervois, a long haul from Provence. Although you'll occasionally see "Provence" used to denote all of Southern France, it's really limited to the region east of the mouth of the Rhone, through Marseilles and Nice. Languedoc is west of the Rhone, through Montpellier to the Pyrenees, and that's where the Cathars lived and, sadly, died.

The Cathars, MR. Pedant, lived as close to the Rhone as Beaucaire, which is on the banks of the Southern Rhone, where I had an apartment for three weeks--fabulous! Anyway, a major Cathar massacre took place at Beaucaire, and you are correct: Provence is not part of the Cathar domain, but it is no stretch to imagine them fleeing the Church over the river and east.

Mind you, this was long before the entrepreneurial folks who moved into Provence with an eye to making it a bigger player on the wine scene, and the standout estates that have since developed.

What do you think of the rose de Provence you can find in a regular French supermarket at around 5 euros (it would sell in the States for $8-10)? I'm not talking about prestigious estates such as Tempier or Peyrassol but a nice typical rose wine served on your white meat during the winter and your barbecue in the summer: fruity, well balanced, light and refreshing - the one I enjoy.

Eve:

When I am in Provence or the Rhone, I become French---at least to the extent that I gulp down rose wines in copious amounts. I quickly train my car to automatically turn when a "degustation vente" sign appears on the roadside, and the first thing I sample is inevitably the rose. I almost totally suspend my white wine consumption, starting with roses and proceeding to red wines as needed.

That said, I think it would be a difficult proposition---not impossible, mind you, but difficult---to achieve any mass with Provencal roses in the US market. The price points for rose are still relatively low, and there are many available varietally identified roses here---virtually every winery makes at least a little, and some make quite a bit, but have difficulty selling them, so we often see them at somewhat discounted prices.

The other problem is there are still vast amounts of "blush/rose" wines---sweet, high volume jugs usually---that dominate the low end of the market, so coming out with a "Provencal Rose" doesn't signify any sense of quality or distinction.

I think you're on the right track attempting to identify and market the essence of Provence, rather than simply "rose wine", and using the signifiers that would resonate with people (seashore, garrigue, lavender and fields of flowers, Med. foods, olives, etc.).

Another problem is that roses don't hold on the shelf for very long---most roses that are more than a year old aren't fresh and lively.

What is in your favor, in the US market, is that for the first time in a long time, since the advent of White Zinfandel/Blush wines, we're seeing retailers actually figure out there is a potential market for rose wines----good, dry, crisp rose wines. But so far the Rhone and Languedoc pretty much have that market sewn up.

And $8--10? If you're talking front-line retail, maybe. But you'd have to end up discounting it unless you were able to put a big marketing push behind it and successfully establish a very clear brand identity/quality position. As I said, you can find Languedoc/Southern Rhone roses in the market for $5--7 quite easily. Too many people willing to give their rose away to keep the volume flushing through the system.

Thanks, Eve. We grow roses and home, and I was an attorney for Camille la Rue, a fragrance producing company near Cannes. The Provence rose is known in English, from the OED, as the Provence rose, the cabbage rose, Rosa centifolia, or a variety of it, esp. one bearing fragrant red flowers, or a hybrid produced by crossing R. centifolia and R. gallica; also, a flower of one of these plants. I used to try to schedule my visits to Camille during the rose petal harvest season.

Of course, we would fly into Paris and the gardens at Provins were spectacular at the same time.

Thanks for the language lesson -- it brought back wonderful memories.

By the way, have you seen Extremely Pale Rosé: A Very French Adventure by Jamie Ivey? A fascinating book about rosés and about France.

Regards, and thanks, Bob

On a personal level - as a lover of rose wines - I'm a little disappointed that Americans don't seem ready to share with us this enjoyment but I do understand they have many good local rosés. I enjoyed quite a few last summer in California and really liked them.

Ah. You touched on a very sore point with me there.

The American interest in MAKING rose wines is definitely there. And the recent rise in interest in consumption of rose wines in America is definitely there (begun first, as always, with restaurants and eventually and reluctantly getting down to the retail establishments; the axiom remains that on-premise makes the trends and retail harvests the trends).

And American wineries are quite successfully enjoying exports in rose wines too. One of the Fetzer wines (disclosure: one of my company's wine brands) has a Rose of Syrah that sells thousands and thousands of cases in the UK and EU markets. And it's in screwcap too.

The trouble in generating more activity and consumption on rose is twofold: the Marketing folks and the Sales Folks. Well, threefold, really: the Gatekeeper Buyers, those people that buy for the large indies and the big chains, who arbitrarily decide what gets in and what doesn't. The Marketing people don't want to add SKUs and the sales people don't want to fight to get new products on shelves---unless they know they have a sure thing. Costs money, and might detract from other successful products, blah blah blah. And god forbid the gatekeepers (of which I used to be one) should actually try something new or offer something to the customer out of the standard and ordinary.

The other problem is that of freshness and product turn, quite honestly. Most of the wineries produce rose----but it's because the winemakers usually want to make a rose, not because it's seen as a product with groundswell demand. So they make small amounts, and don't spend a lot of time marketing or distributing it very far away from home. And it's always seen as an adjunct to the 'gotta have' Cabernets, Chardonnays, Merlots and Syrahs out there. And now Pinot Grigio.

Of course it is possible....remotely, but possible....that rose could achieve Pinot Grigio-like status and become a 'gotta have' in its own right. But, honestly, I don't think that's going to happen. I think we'll continue to see a good strong surge, with rose becoming more visible and respectable as a niche category, but never to the point of being a dominant category.

Of course, I've been wrong before in my prognosticatory abilities.

Based on my limited years as a retailer in Manhattan, solid, not sickly sweet, rose wines have a market just waiting to be marketed to...

Mind you, this was long before the entrepreneurial folks who moved into Provence with an eye to making it a bigger player on the wine scene, and the standout estates that have since developed.

What do you think of the rose de Provence you can find in a regular French supermarket at around 5 euros (it would sell in the States for $8-10)? I'm not talking about prestigious estates such as Tempier or Peyrassol but a nice typical rose wine served on your white meat during the winter and your barbecue in the summer: fruity, well balanced, light and refreshing - the one I enjoy.

I think that the Rosé de Provence that I've had has benn delightful but simple, exactly what I look for on a hot summer's afternoon.

Mark Lipton

Eve, Randy, Robin, Hoke, et al,

I am a great fan of rosé wines, but have never met a Rosé de Provence I felt any special attraction to (although this could very well be an instance of "you have to go there"...)

One reason is psychological: I find them too pale.
This, of course, is not in and of itself a failing...
However, I like a lively color to my rosés, not the wishy-washy color of Rosé de Provence, which I also find lacking in aromatics and, frequently, fresh fruit.

I am a huge fan, for instance of Clairet de Bordeaux or Rosé des Riceys, wines that not only have a color between rosé and red, but also lots of fruit and - above all - personality.
While Rosé des Riceys is relatively expensive, good Clairet is pretty cheap, certainly no more than Rosé de Provence.

I never buy Rosé de Provence and have been non-plussed by the many examples I've been served at friends' houses and in restaurants.
I do not claim to know this appellation well at all. However, I am no newcomer to it and what I've seen so far does not really motivate me to look any further...

Best regards,
Alex R.