What Secret Recipe Lies Behind the Success of Rosé Wines?

This is the story of an outcast, a wine that's long been vilified by critics, a local Provençal wine, until it joined the big leagues. You have to come to California, in my home country, to see the proof. One June afternoon, round the back of a villa in Santa Monica, a friend who's passionate about wine invited us to a garden party among some great company. Hollywood cinema producers, Los Angeles wine importers, real estate agents, editors, everyone had just one rule to follow, to drink rosé. For a French person, it's hard to believe that so much great talent would gather for a rosé-themed event, a wine so disliked by the French elite. For an American, even Dan is surprised by his own success with rosé. About 20 years ago, I wanted to get a bunch of friends together to drink wine, and not think about wine, just to enjoy it. So the only way to do that was to pick the one wine category that nobody cared about at that time was rosé. So now, everybody else likes rosé, and we have so many more to choose from. Some of Dan's friends were even happy to let us taste a few gems from their own personal cellars. Oh, ----, dude. That's a ******* unicorn. What does it mean? Because a unicorn... How often do you see a unicorn flying around? Yeah, good. So, yeah, that's our point. Yes. This is 2011 Grenache rosé. So, rosé. A rosé wine considered to be a vintage that will age, we can't believe it either. 2010. So the grape is T-Bornen. So do you have to be in California to appreciate the third color and shake off French preconceptions? It's true. Back home, very serious critics have, for the first time, included a rosé in the list of the 100 best wines in the world. This wine is from Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie's vineyard, but it's also a French wine. Is this another Hollywood success story? Well, a couple of movie stars, the biggest movie stars in the world, bought some property in Provence, and they had plenty of room to grow grapes. They connected with one of the top families in Chez Rooftop and said, look, we want to do this the right way. Tell us what we need to do and then do it. So they've expanded the program. It's been marketed beautifully. People taste it. They like it. And, of course, they don't always buy just Meravelle. They'll then try other rosés. Rosé isn't just a Hollywood fad, then. Otherwise, how can you explain that around the world, while the consumption and production of all other wines has decreased, rosé consumption and production has continued to increase? More than 25 million hectoliters, the equivalent of 330 million bottles, rain down on the world's wine merchants and supermarkets every year. And guess what? One of every four bottles comes from France. Ah, yes, indeed. We are the leading producers worldwide, and we're also the leading consumers worldwide. Nine in 10 French people drink rosé, almost 25 bottles a year each. Obviously less than red, but more than white. For such a vilified wine, you have a strange way of hating it. All right, something has clearly changed in the world of rosé. The quality, the taste, the color? Or could it be to do with wine in general? Had the criteria for a good wine changed? Maybe it just needed to change color in order to start revolutionizing our palates. Off we jolly well go. It's the first joy that the vacations bring to city dwellers, confined year-round to their daily chores, worries and habits. Vacations. You're the ones who invented them, in a way. But let us come back to the origins of rosé. You're saying it was invented in Provence because of the vacations? So with the introduction of paid vacation leave in 1936, many French people traveled to the Mediterranean and discovered the delights of the sea and the local rosé wine. Once back home, those living in Paris, Lyon or other cities started asking for it in their local bars. But back then, wines didn't travel well, unless they had a hefty dose of sulfites, which can cause memorable migraines. Despite advances in oenology, this unfavorable reputation has lasted for many years, hasn't it? It has, so in the 80s, when Françoise Rigor, a former press secretary for the Béliner Onassis, took a fancy to her new husband's vineyard, she had to find a strategy to revolutionize people's ideas about rosé. Rosé didn't have an upmarket image. It was just a little colored wine. When they harvested the grapes, they'd use the rotten grapes for rosé. That was the Provençal mentality. Rosé was made with rotten grapes. In 1987, Françoise and a dozen of her wine-loving friends adopted an American's idea. Ah, yet another fellow countryman in the story? It was an American who came up with the idea, the Route du Rhum sailing race. Why not? Why don't we do the Route du Rosé? Each rosé producer paid 50,000 francs and had their bottles carried by sailboats from Saint-Tropez to hotels in St. Barthes. I think it's had a huge influence on the American rosé market. So we, U.S. consumers, already had a head start over the French when it came to testing vintage rosés? No one took us seriously at all. There were, and still are, certain sommeliers who'd say that rosé isn't even wine. While rosé became a standard commodity around the world, and even in France, following the Provençal model, all the other regions of France began increasing production. But new preconceptions came along. Rosé would be a mix of white and red wine. Yet this practice is completely forbidden in Europe. It's a wine for women and young people. And yet men were drinking it too. Or it's a cheap and chillful summer drink to be drunk chilled, despite its optimum tasting temperature being between 8 and 14 degrees. Much like Francoise, many producers are fighting to have their rosé accepted into the family of great wines. For example, Audrey Bacino, 34, the fifth generation of her family and the first female winegrower to run her family's 50-hectare wine estate. So Audrey, is rosé a real wine? If you look at the vineyard, whether you're producing red, rosé or white, the work is the same. The aim is to have healthy vines and the highest quality grapes possible. And even during the winemaking process and in the cellars, I'd say that not only is it a real wine, but it's actually difficult to make. Of the three colours, it's the hardest to make. Why not just mix some white wine and red wine? No, remember, that method is completely forbidden in Europe. Many wonder where the colour of rosé wines comes from. The grapes aren't pink to start with. Rosé is made partly from white grape varieties, 20% maximum, and then mainly red grapes. In Provence, you'd use a Saint-Saëns, Syrah or Grenache variety. See? Black skin and white pulp. Even if you press the grapes hard, the juice will still be white. It only gains colour upon contact with the skin, as it softens for several hours, until it turns pink. And if you don't take the dark skins out of the press, the juice would just turn red, as it does with red wine. So, the process for making rosé is very different from other wines. But can it be one of the greats? Luc Nivière, a former marine firefighter, took over his family's estate 15 years ago. What even makes a great wine? What does a great wine even mean? Do you compare it with the great reds, or...? Is it a hefty price tag? Is it financial? If it's expensive, does that mean it's a great wine? It's possible. Some people in Provence sell rosé at very expensive prices. But no, the crucial thing is that it's a real wine. It's a good quality wine, that's all. Ah, quality, that's the key word. If we look at certain technical criteria that apply to wine, rosé has more or less the same alcohol, sugar and sulfite content. According to Luc, the key differences come at the blending stage in mid-winter, when it gets its taste and colour. For this phase of the process, Luc has sought the expertise of an oenologist, as well as his two farm workers, and the expert advice of his wife. When we do the blends, it's like our baby. We always have a dilemma between the product that we like and the product that the average customer will like. We're professionals. We have our own tastes. We have a professional taste. But the average consumer, whether they're from the Côte d'Azur or Paris, doesn't have the same taste. They don't have the same climate. And they don't have the same tasting methods or eating habits. So it needs to please everyone. To find the right formula, Luc and his team use grapes that have been fermented in vats, which each correspond to different plots and grape varieties. They take samples, which they test, taste and mix on a small scale. What was in two? In number two, we had two from GV87G, and 23 from C4. After many equations, and depending on the volumes available, they developed three ranges of rosé, from the cheaper to the more expensive. What do you think? There's a slight hint of... It needs... Yeah, yeah. There's a hint of something. I know. Not a lot. There's a slight hint of something. It's quite robust. Yes, but... It's too... But will people like it? Okay, so you don't agree. But you have to make sure you do agree. What we ultimately want is for me to help you choose the most harmonious blend between the two. Right now, I'm leaning a little towards the number two. But we'll try it again. It's the first impression. You have to stick with your first impression. It's no mean feat trying to guess what the average consumer will like. And guess what color they will choose. Because unlike with red or white wines, rosé producers have to be careful about the color at each stage of the winemaking process. You have grape varieties like Saint-Saëns, which are naturally very light. So it's not just, right, we'll make the wine and see what color it comes out and then fiddle with it to make it lighter. No. The color all depends on which grape variety you're growing. Alban Cacaré, who's been managing his estate since his uncle bought it 15 years ago, always invites Françoise to his blending sessions. Françoise has been producing light-colored rosés for many years. Wines that are now very popular with consumers. So tell me, out of color and taste, which is more important for a rosé? Color doesn't prevail over taste, but it's an element that's important to take into account because it's the first thing you notice about the wine. Whether you like it or not, color is the first aspect you notice and you can't change that. You have to get the color of the wine right to get the ball rolling. Here, let me try this wine because I like the look of its color. It's so important in a rosé that... And in red wines, the color is less noticeable. When you buy a bottle of red, the glass is often green, so you can't see the color as well. So the differences are less noticeable. I wanted to check the colors. That's good. Which one's the Chateau? Yeah. But I can see that this one has a more intense color. Yes. It's more shiny. It's a slightly bluish pink. It's slightly blue. And after filtration, the Chateau will be really light. It's perfect. Okay. The obsession with using color to make the wine desirable, it does make one wonder. Does the pink color influence the taste? It's a hypothesis being explored by the Rosé Research Center, which has been funded by wine growers. They've had semiologists and sociologists studying these questions. The pink color associated with a Rosé wine is a positive in people's minds. It represents two things, a shift and an affection. So in terms of the shift, Rosé is slightly on the fringe of the wine world. It has its own special place, slightly separate from the world of red and white. In terms of affection, it's a wine shared among friends and relatives. It's a wine of love. For his current study on different Grenache wines, Gilles Masson is holding a blind testing of two different colors. Oh, one was much darker than the other. Will it affect how much they like it? When a wine is rich in color, you imagine it to be very whiny, or that it's very alcoholic or rich. When a wine is very light, you imagine it to be slender, airy and of high. And sometimes that's true, but sometimes it's not. So you really need objectivity in our scientific profession. We have to look at everything independently. So the lightest doesn't necessarily taste better. Exactly. And to objectively assess all the different shades of Rosé around the world, researchers have developed a color chart, which ranges from the deep tones typical of the Bordeaux or Loire regions, to the lighter you'd find in Provence. From the reddest to the yellowest, basically. But here we'd say grapefruit or gooseberry. Oh, you French people are funny. You use fruits to describe colors. And you say colors have no flavors? No, the color doesn't change the taste. They're two very different things. But there's always a fruity language associated with these Rosé wines, which is nice to use. And that's why we chose the names of fruits to match the colors on the color chart. I'm still skeptical. But let's assume that the color doesn't affect the taste. What makes a Rosé taste good? Because you say it's a different type of wine. In Cannes, we found the perfect chance to ask this question, as it's the World Rosé Competition, which annually brings together more than 70 oenologists from 18 different nationalities, there to award 400 medals to more than 1,300 anonymous wines. Lisette, 78. Choukri, 83. Me, 76. And Marie-Hélène, 82. Gilles, 63. Zortaan, 83. I put 78. The bitterness and acidity, I got a really unpleasant aftertaste. I found that the sweetness was a bit too dominant to call it a well-balanced wine. I got a slight peanutty taste. As tasters, we don't judge the wine in comparison with any other, or what we personally look for in a wine, but rather one that fits a commercially viable profile, a more universal wine. The medal may assure good sales, but does it also assure good taste? The American statistician Robert Hodgson demonstrated that nine out of 10 judges presented with the same anonymous wine three times during the same tasting session, and it's a serious study that's been repeated for 10 years. Scientists may well question the reliability of a judge's opinion, but it won't change anything. A wine awarded a medal will always sell more than one without, and that applies around the world. But there are often results that may seem surprising, like those of the last range tasted. Right, so what do you say? I give up. You give up? Yes? Their pale colors would indicate that they might come from near the Mediterranean. Corsica? Corsica? I don't know if it's from somewhere quite that sunny, because in terms of taste, there's a few things missing. It was deceiving? It was... We were a bit thrown off by the colors. Too pale? The colors are very, very pale. Very, very pale. No, I give up. So, have you awarded lots of medals? What have you gone for? Two medals? That's not very generous. Well, you all guessed the same region. Probably. Yes, all from the same region. They were all from the Provence hillsides. Does it mean that the roses from Provence lost their taste by focusing too much on the color? To find out, we need to speak to a food expert. But which sommelier in France will take rosé seriously? With everything we're dealing with... Franck Thomas is a rare gem. Ah yes, you have to think about that. The best sommelier in Europe is from Antibes. And what's the estate's philosophy? And he'd love to quash the preconceptions surrounding rosé, the perfect accompaniment to a barbecue or aperitif. For me, rosé has earned its stripes. It's a wine, too. It's a great wine in the food world. I have a wonderful memory of eating a Papillon Roquefort sandwich with a Bondol rosé. It was a few years old. Who'd have thought I'd enjoy a Bondol rosé so much? It was absolutely perfect. So you can drink rosé with cheese. Rosé and cheese? This Franck guy seems rather iconoclastic. Well, yes and no, as having caught wind of certain food experts' enjoyment of rosé, a Britannia retail chain has asked him to choose the best of the 120 vintages presented that day. When you make a wine, what's your thinking behind it? Well, the idea is for the wine to reflect the land, for it to be an expression of the land. It should be a wine with a personality, really. This is our local wine. It's a Luni with Sanso grapes. It's a bit more body, a bit more spice. It's, uh, it's not open. Still, I wonder if they're possibly a bit too cold at the moment. That's okay. It's more open, more aromatic, more elegant. Grenache, Sanso and Syrah. It's more feminine. It's easy. It's slightly acidic. It's a little thirst-quenching rosé. It's very popular. This is where it's important not to always follow the market's response. If the client wants a techno rosé, they don't necessarily need us. What I mean is they can go alone, buy their rosé and that's it. What do you call a techno rosé? A techno rosé is one that you open. It's one that smells of sweets. It's a rosé that smells like a bottle of perfume. It smells more of perfume than wine. When it comes to wine aromas, it's funny. But sometimes you have to say that it smells of grapes. It's silly, but it works. Are there many techno rosés? There are a few. Yeah? There are a few. Here there are examples of every possible type. So there are some really commercial rosés. There are rosés that are very much local wines. And there are others that fall somewhere between the two. And we're just trying to find ones we like. And is a techno rosé commercial or not? It's getting there, yes. If you had to compare it, it's a bit like industrial food. A food without soul. Today, Audrey, Françoise and Luc have all introduced their latest vintages. But buried among the masses, our sommelier didn't even notice them. Or maybe Franck's price was too low for a great wine. How much would this be wholesale, ma'am? And you are? A wine merchant. For classified PDO bottles, €4.60. Rosés are €5.50. The Brittany Company has asked Franck to choose wines that can be sold for less than 10 years in their shop. And is it possible to get a great wine for a small price, Mr. Sommelier? You can get great wines for €5, €25 or €50. For me, the price of a wine has no relation. Well, the quality of wine has no bearing on its price. It's the notion of your immediate emotion. And you always refer to this notion when you talk about a great wine. A great wine for me isn't necessarily... Many experts say that a great wine should be a classified vintage. It's about prestige, price, notoriety and rarity. But I think a great wine is when I open a bottle, taste it, smell it, and it excites me. And ultimately, there are huge numbers of consumers or wine lovers who don't have the technical wine knowledge. When they drink wine, they get enjoyment out of it and feel real emotions. For me, that's the definition of a great wine. Rosé may now be considered a great wine within Provence. But this new appetite for it comes at a price, that of the land. These last five years, Audrey Bacino, who bought a few hectares to expand her family property, has seen some big names move in. Bordeaux winemakers like Bernard Vingré with his 41 estates worldwide, the Castel brothers and the 600 million bottles, Gérard Bertrand from the Languedoc. And many others too. We had Brad Pitt. So there were people coming from other countries, other cultures. And then there are champagne growers too, who are really close actually. There are champagne producers who, in addition to their vineyards in Champagne, have decided to develop vineyards here in Provence too. I reckon in 10 years' time, the price of the biggest winemaking properties will have increased tenfold. It's certainly true that nowadays, with young farmers moving in, there are many others working the land. So it's complicated. I was fortunate because my ancestors had developed the estate enough beforehand. But I have peers who only have a few hectares. And they can't really start a winery. They'd like to expand. But up against huge investors, they don't just struggle. It's literally impossible for them. The Rosé revolution has pushed Audrey into a new era, that of the commercial war. And she has to fight hard on a global scale now. You may be surprised, but the biggest international wine exhibition takes place in Germany. Agents, buyers, distributors, importers. Rosé has become their greatest hope. It's one of the rare items on the rise in terms of global consumption. Plus 20% in 10 years. And plus 50% last year alone in the United States. Even the biggest Chinese retailer gave it a go just two years ago, seeking advice from a Austrian oenologist. Do the Chinese drink Rosé too? No, not yet. But what's interesting about good wines, and we know this through market studies, is that women, especially young women, are drinking more and more white and Rosé wines. So, OK, in China, 90% drink red. But there'll most certainly be a Rosé boom over there in the next two years. Because it goes down really well for any occasion. You don't have to be an expert to appreciate it. And also, it's quite chic to drink Rosé, right? So will Audrey soon have Chinese clients? As it stands, Germany remains one of the biggest importers of Provencal Rosé after the US. This is the first time Audrey has visited Dusseldorf. So she's called upon an agent. Equally proportioned. Summer, patios, aperitifs. Reconceptions of Rosé seem to be good for business here. This wine will work well at an international level because it's a dry wine. And that's what consumers want, dry wines. But at the same time, it needs to be well-rounded and pleasant. And that's very much the case with this wine. What is the price for the final consumer in France for these wines? 15, around 15. This one? This one is around 10. In Germany, the market for Rosé is from 10 up. It's not so easy. I think you know that. And so I think the developing is there. But we need some more time to explain. But it's hard to sell Rosé for the wine shops with 12, 15 euros. It's not so easy. Audrey has a dilemma. The price of her Rosé has been deemed too high for exportation. So should she look elsewhere? Maybe she'll have more luck in my country. Because in the US, there are some legends who manage to sell bottles for more than the equivalent of 20 euros each. Audrey has heard stories about a star from Provence based in the States. It's not Angelina Jolie or Brad Pitt, but Sacha Lichine, originally from Bordeaux, who converted to Rosé and sold his first 25 million bottle batch of wine in the States. Do you have another glass, Tom? So the difference is that it's between 30 to 50 years old. That's whispering. That's the most classic wine made in Provence. It's very different. It's a bit different. They're actually four completely different wines at four completely different prices. Sacha Lichine dares to sell the most prestigious of his wines as high as $100 per bottle. Oh, well, the price we set hasn't changed since the beginning. The price has always been set. Nowadays, we make more than 25 to 30,000 bottles. More or less, all of them get sold. It's a very sought after product. We received 20-20 rating from English critics recently, which have never been given to a Rosé before. And 20-20, I've never even had that at school. So it was the first time I'd had a 20-20. I was very happy. Mr. Lichine is thus the creator of the world's most expensive Rosé. As a well-acquainted expert, he was wise enough to ask for advice from the most influential sommeliers. Gérard Marjean from the Ducasse restaurants, who's the leading sommelier in Paris, when he started tasting it, he looked at me and he said that it should be sold like one of the great whites. He explained to me that people were used to paying quite considerable sums for a bottle of Montrachet or Chazanne or Coton Chalamagne. Well, for a great white. So he said I needed to sell it like a great white and that it should be as pale as possible with a slight hint of color and at least make sure sommeliers remember it. But you know, for sommeliers, Rosé isn't a real wine to them. They laugh in your face. Even today, in Bordeaux, there are oenologists who come to Provence to make white or red and refuse to make Rosé. Because they say it's the Coca-Cola of wine. But I just reckon they don't know how to make it. That's likely it. Ah, we've been told that the color doesn't affect the taste, but it might affect the price, however. Perhaps we should come back to this question of color and put it to a few independent scientists. Just a little side note. You should try to avoid over-categorizing it before you describe it. Your brain is... Yes, sometimes it plays tricks. Each year, at the School of Wine, a sensory analysis researcher uses his students as guinea pigs. Without telling them anything in advance? Here, I'll serve you a little taste. It's part of the process of learning about wine and the technical oenology diploma. This is their first Rosé tasting session. So, we're all going to compile a little list of descriptions. So, who's going first? Grapefruit. Wild strawberries. Exotic fruits. Haribo strawberries. Is it a grenadine syrup taste, for example? No. No? So, I'll put Haribo strawberries. Third tasting, this time a white. Citrus fruits, lemon? Lime or lemon? Lime. Haribo banana? She tastes Haribo banana. He's getting unripe melons. You're tyrants! Jordi Baguette actually tricked his students. He gave them two versions of the same white wine. But he added a no-de-less, neutral pink coloring to the first one. Nobody spotted the deception. And so, the pink color did solicit some unusual descriptors for a white wine. Sight, as I've told you, works at the speed of light. And it's processed very, very quickly by your brain. So, immediately, you're inclined to look for a certain type of descriptor for your wine. And that's what's made you think of wild strawberries, Haribo strawberries, maybe even raspberries. That was it. What really shocked me was the tasting, where I had completely different sensations upon actually tasting it. And I was surprised because, ultimately, like you say, you could taste the bitterness. But it's funny because there was one with a short finish. The brain is slightly trained. We're completely tricked because we were suggesting grapefruit and red berries. And it's true that normally in a wine, you'd either get red berries or citrus fruits, but not together. He tricked us good and proper. So, the student's sense of sight resulted in different impressions about the very same wine. Now, we've looked at color. Let's see what influence price has. We've done this with chocolate, right? We've done this with water. We've done this with chocolate milkshakes, these kind of things. So, it's just a general intuition that we have that higher price means higher quality. Thus, we have expectations. Oh, my God, this must taste really amazing if it's $90. $90? That's almost the same price as a Sacher-Lechin rosé. During her latest experiment in California, Ilka Plassmann, a neuromarketing expert, got some tasters to try out different wines. Using a scanner, she was able to see what happened inside someone's brain when they were told the price. Unbeknownst to them, the $90 wine was the same as the $10 wine. We find that this region here, called the medial orbital frontal cortex, is more active when the same wine is offered for $90 versus $10. So, why do people report that they like the $90 wine more than the $10 wine? Well, it's because they feel they like the wine more when it's more expensive because the brain regions involved in encoding the taste pleasantness is telling them, well, this is better stuff. Wait, sorry, that means... That Sacher-Lechin's $90 wine might be no good. But the price makes it nice? Well, no. A colleague in San Diego has repeated the study using wines from the same grape but are very different qualities. Then she looked at what's actually happening for this really bad wine and then she finds that then putting a high price tag on the wine really has the opposite effect, right? So, when consumers start feeling cheated, then they say, oh my god, this is really not great, right? So, that means that you have to deliver on quality but within a certain range of qualities then the price tag can make a difference on your consumer satisfaction or not. And it's a good thing for consumers because otherwise this would mean I can just produce a shitty product and then put a high price tag on it and make a lot of money with it. So, that's not how it works. As an American, I am reassured. My country's favorite expensive rosés ought to provide a certain quality after all. As a French person, if you told me I could sell rosé at $100 a pop like a great vintage, I'd never have believed you. But now that's all I can do. It's time to visit California, back in my country. We need to meet Jeff, a former wine critic. He's now opened his own winery in Central Berkeley. He's a big name in the rosé world. I'm the former king of rosé. Ah, it's you. Yes, that's me. Not anymore, but it was me. And now I'm tasting my Zinfandel Red. I also make rosé with Zinfandel here in California. In 2000, Jeff was the first U.S. producer to specialize in rosé. The reason he speaks such good French is because working as a critic here, he was a musician in Monaco and a big fan of rosé wines from Provence. I wanted to replicate it, make something very special, but pink, rosé. So, I did that for eight years. And each year, more and more people were starting to make rosé. So, to begin with, it was good because it was just me. But after a while, there was so much competition that I eventually had to stop. Did you start too early? Possibly, but that's the problem when you're a genius. So, Jeff, how do you make your rosé here? It's very simple. We load the grapes over the top. They start to fall, and when they fill up to about here, I have a screen inside the tank. I open the valve. The juice escapes. We have a tube attached to this or a hose attached to this. It comes right out, and we go right into the barrels. We fill up, I don't know, two, three, four, five from one tank. It's about maybe 5% or 10% of volume goes to rosé. And then about two, three, four weeks later, it's done. Ah, you Americans make everything seem so easy with your Seigneur rosé. But Seigneur rosé is an old technique that's still used in certain regions of France, like Bordeaux. Ah, OK. But this rosé looks more fruity, less minerally, and redder than the light pinks of Provence. The French seem to think that light-colored rosés are better than a little darker color. This is also absolutely ridiculous, OK? You don't drink color. Are you listening, French people? You don't drink color. What you drink is flavor, aroma. And that's what you need to focus on. Not bitter at all, Jeff vows to challenge our preconceptions. He's taking us to visit some vineyards in the Napa Valley. Some big names have established themselves here to compete with the best European wines and have become veritable empires, like the famous Robert Mondavi or the film director Francis Ford Coppola. There's also the Trincero dynasty, where Roger will be taking us around the vineyard that he's just bought. This area here and all the way wrapping around the winery is our, what we call our Mario's Vineyard. It's named after my father. And then we have a BRV, which stands for Bob Roger Vera. That's my generation. The Trincero family is actually the fourth wealthiest winemaker in the United States, which they achieved through their rosé. It all started by chance with a bit of Seigne juice from a red zinfandel grape that had been left in a corner. In 75, we had a stuck fermentation, which left the rosé with about 2% residual sugar. We had this slightly sweet, pinkish wine. We produced it. We weren't going to throw it away. We put it out there. We said, it tastes pretty good. Let's try it. It snowballed. We sold out just almost immediately. And suddenly the demand was our wholesalers, our retailers, our customers. They were saying, you got to produce more. And we started doubling our production every year. And then by the mid-1987s, we were producing well over 3 million cases of white zinfandel. And this started from initial 72, we produced about 250 cases. Certainly when you started making white zin, the American public was very fond of sweet things. You know, I mean, we did invent Coca-Cola. And the Trincaro family stumbled onto this. And really, they were right there where the American public wanted them to be. I think that in the United States, not a single family won't have heard of Roger's super sweet, low-range rosé wine. Though wine critics don't want to hear about it. Even if demand has slowed down, they still sell 20 million bottles per year. And since then, Roger has successfully adapted his lineup to our changing palates. Unlike white zinfandel, which was sort of serendipity, these were planned, you know, because we do a lot of research. We see where the markets are going. We see that certain people like French rosés. So we have a French rosé. Certain people like Central Coast rosés. We have a Central Coast rosé. A lot of people like rosés from South America. Jeff confirms that in Napa Valley, more and more great empires are falling in love with rosé. Even Mrs. Geneviève, the head enologist for the Mondavi Group, has started setting aside a certain percentage of her famous barrels of red for a saignée rosé. She needs to make sure the 150,000 tourists each year leave with a little taste of rosé for the summer. Rosé is something special that we wanted to personally offer to customers who came down to see the cellars, so that they know when they come here that they're getting something special. Rosé. So it's a rosé wine made specially for visiting customers? Yes. It's not something you'd sell or might bring you even further success? No, not at all. It's the customers who belong to our club. And our club customers and customers who come here for a good time to refresh themselves and relax on vacation. I feel like between an easy wine and a serious wine, the French distinction means very little here. Rosé is about relaxing. Indeed. In California, we are experts in relaxing. And so are sommeliers. Meanwhile, back in France, many of our biggest restaurants still don't feature any rosés on their menu. That doesn't make any sense to me. They're missing out because what I... I mean, food is always evolving and wines are always evolving. And rosé is so versatile. So our other restaurant is a Michelin restaurant and we have rosé. We pour rosé at it and... Shelley was voted the best sommelier in the United States last year. I can't resist. Could a hamburger be well matched with a rosé? I think so. I think absolutely. It's refreshing too because they can get, especially the kind that some people like to eat, they get really messy and juicy. And I like, you know, I'm kind of a salad girl, so I like all the veggie stuff on top of a hamburger. And I think that's even better with rosé, when you kind of lighten it up a little bit. We'll now finish with the sacrosanct culture of serious wines, which is perhaps what enabled Frenchman Sacha Lichine to flop the market. In fact, Sacha Lichine used other assets. Lauren Bonner, a 23-year-old model and training actress, came to try her luck in LA. How are you guys doing? Tell me a little bit about your brand. I love your shirt. That's really cool. And I saw pink and immediately I was like, I gotta go see that. This is so great. You know, he's really just about outgoing and having a fun environment and education. Yeah, we're gonna go to this bar in just a little bit. You should come have some rosé. Come have some rosé in the back bar if you have a chance back here. Yeah, definitely. I haven't. So it's from Provence in the south of France, right near Saint-Tropez. It's the leading premium rosé in America, right? And today is National Rosé Day, so I think we should all celebrate. So rosé all day. Obviously, National Rosé Day is not a national holiday in the US. Rosé is a new champagne. Oh, and today is International Rosé Day, so we have to celebrate rosé all day. It's purely a marketing technique invented by importer Sacha Lichine. It's not champagne. As much as I love champagne, it's not. Rosé. She did have to give me the difference. She educated me for sure. With the rosé. So on three. One, two, three. Nice. This is how us millennials do it. All we do is our phone, our Snapchat. So it seems that attracting millennials by using social networks helps reach a wider audience and even certain celebrities? It seems to be a very cost-effective strategy in the States. But the greatest wine critics won't be swayed by a few hashtags here and there. At Wine Spectator, one of the magazines that's capable of making or breaking the reputation of a wine around the world, Kim Marcus is responsible for the revolution happening before our eyes. I rated the Chateau Miraval Rosé in 2013. It got 90 points. A very, very good showing for Provence. And it had a lot of production. 15,000 cases imported into the United States, which is very significant. And it also had some star power, you know. Brad Pitt, Angelina Jolie. And it just jumped out. And we rated it. It was number 84 on our top 100 list that year. And I believe it was our first table rosé. We've had rosé champagnes that rated very well. But this was the first rosé table wine that rated that highly to get onto our list. The media attention was more because it was celebrity. Yes, especially for the Miraval. But it was also nice that it was rosé. I mean, it really, it combined two things. The increasing quality of rosé. The explosive popularity of rosé in the United States. I mean, it's everywhere now. You can't, I think people, you know, just for casual drinking, make more and more go to rosé than white wines even. But, you know, the combination of the quality of the wine, the celebrity, you know, that was just a magic formula for the big boom. Ever since, Kim and his publication have given great commendations to other rosés from California, Italy, and France. They seem to be supporting the popular movement surrounding rosé, unless it's just a case of good marketing strategies. In any case, this year, Sasha Lachine's prestigious wine received a score of 91 out of 100. Meanwhile, 25 million bottles of his slightly lower range wine, scoring 90 out of 100, are also being sold. I now better understand why estates in France like that of Alban are trying to export to the American market. But we shouldn't forget that rosé isn't all about market shares. And nature plays tricks that the market can't foresee. There are beds already swelling like this little one. It's solid to the end, right to the end. It's still full of sap. It's all been frozen. And it's destroyed all the pulp. It's quite catastrophic. We have almost 10 hectares belonging to one tenant that have been completely destroyed. Yeah, completely. In just one spring night, the frost has ruined almost 80% of the harvest. It's a phenomenon that winemakers experience every 15 years or so. So Alban rosé might be more expensive this year? It's like a vintage effect, depending on if you have a good or bad year. When it comes to rosé, that's definitely not the case. It's completely crazy. But consumers don't accept it. And you can clearly tell the difference from one vintage to another. There's less of a connection with the land and the vine in the mind of a rosé drinker. Because, as we've been saying, it's a party wine, a wine you take less seriously. But this is where it comes from. It's a real wine, after all. So how can you make sure you don't disappoint your customers if you can't always produce enough wine? The Paracel Estate has lesser sin on one of its secrets. They have trade batches, which are wines that they blend partly from grapes or juices that are vinified on other estates. That's 280 hectares worth. Is that enough to quench the thirst of both the new rosé fans and those more well-versed? 37,000 bottles. We have trade wines called Hashtag Lou, for example, or Templars Reserve, which have nothing to do with the Paracel Commandery or Chateau de Paracel, but we're the ones who produce them. So do they go to mass retailers? Many do, yes, mainly mass retailers. But they're a lot cheaper, right? They're often much cheaper. They're much cheaper, everyone wants rosé. And you need to produce less expensive rosés for beaches and mass retailers. That's the way it is. It's this progression that works well. In Provence, Paracel obviously aren't the only ones to produce trade batches. The cooperatives do it, as do the big names like Miraval. Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie's estate. Luc, our independent wine grower, has managed to find a place in his region's supermarket, among the great estates or great traders. Easter weekend was a success. They even asked him for extra stock. Sorry, I can't put on a show. No, no, no. No, but it's the wine grower they want to see. I wouldn't know how. I know how to make wine, but I can't sell it. I can't do everything. You just need to get them to taste it, then they'll buy it. Is a small wine grower's wine, like Luc's, better quality than a trade wine? According to the sales manager, it's not necessarily a question of quality, but rather philosophy. In terms of personal ethics, I think it's very important to have agriculture or viticulture that's sustainable on a local level. And that the wine grower themselves puts their heart and soul into the wine and gives it everything they can. So anyone who's partial to philosophy or personal ethics should pay close attention to the R for wine grower and N for wine blended. Beside who actually made the wine, buyers may be attracted to other criteria, such as the wine's metals, color or bottle. You get very attractive packaging like this one, for example, or the square bottle. Why a square bottle? Because it's a bit like a perfume bottle. Is that also true of red wines, or is it a rosé thing? It's more a rosé thing. Oh, really? Much, much more so, yes. Why? Because as I see it, with a red, you'll know the name. So you'll gravitate to a red with a certain name, a Bordeaux, for example, whereas rosés don't really have big names. It's more about color, your perceptions and the look of the bottle. Yes, it's a whole mix of things. So in terms of reputations and big prices, rosé wine still had some aces up its sleeve. Unless the same applies to the world of wine in general. This year, it was our English cousins who at a wine contest rated a rosé from Provence priced under 7 euros as one of the best wines in the world. Evidently, in this new world of rosé, anyone can try their luck. At every harvest, one will always wonder, this next vintage rosé, how will it taste? What color will it be? How much would it cost? What reputation would it have? And frankly, the aim isn't the color. The aim is to make a good wine. Still a bit acidic. It's a good start. We'll see how it... It'll be pale. It'll be a nice color. It'll be a lovely color.