It was my Son’s Birthday today and to celebrate, I opened a bottle of Château La Tour Carnet 2000. Decanted about 90 minutes before drinking, the wine wasn’t showing a great deal of development. It was a deep ruby colour with only a very small garnet rim. After a bit of swirling, it opened up some surprisingly primary aromas of blackcurrant, bramble and Christmas spice. The palate exuded black fruit, lovely balanced vanilla and cinnamon spice and very well balanced, fine tannins.

Given its modest pricing, this has a good future ahead of it yet and I enjoyed it very much.

You’ll be pleased to hear my Son really enjoyed playing with all the toys he received too (and so did I…).

Where does the rosé market go next? It’s undoubtedly a growth category, but one rosé is often very similar to another. And will the consumer ever pay more than £6 for a bottle? Well, this estate in Provence is challenging the general perception of rosé wine and trying to make the category a fine wine icon. But can they justify prices that would make the Bordelais blush (pun intended…)?

Well, read on to find out if Château d’Esclans is really producing the world’s finest rosés.

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