Winemaker Notes
Blend: 65% Grenache, 25% Mourvèdre, 10% Cinsault.
Professional Ratings
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Jeb Dunnuck
Sporting a Tavel like raspberry color, the 2017 Le Fervent Rosé is made by Michel Gassier from the Costières de Nîmes region of the Rhône Valley. It’s a richer, full-bodied rose that offers terrific notes of ripe raspberry and strawberry fruits, hints of garrigue and spice, plenty of fruit and depth, and a clean finish. It’s a beautiful dry rosé geared for the dinner table and will keep for upward of a year.
Whether it’s playful and fun or savory and serious, most rosé today is not your grandmother’s White Zinfandel, though that category remains strong. Pink wine has recently become quite trendy, and this time around it’s commonly quite dry. Since the pigment in red wines comes from keeping fermenting juice in contact with the grape skins for an extended period, it follows that a pink wine can be made using just a brief period of skin contact—usually just a couple of days. The resulting color depends on grape variety and winemaking style, ranging from pale salmon to deep magenta.
Gently rolling hills covered by large, round stones on south-facing slopes, Costieres de Nimes is a substantial IGP zone that was formerly considered part of the Languedoc. Today it is included as a section of the southern Rhone; its climate, topography and wines put it more in line with that appellation. Grenache is its most important red variety, along with Mourvedre, Syrah and Carignan. Half of the production here is rosé.