2018 Château Simone Palette Rouge, Provence, France

ABOUT THIS WINE

By combining ancient vines (some of which are considered to be the oldest in France), sorcerous blending skills, and a 500-year-old hand-dug cellar, today’s flagship red paradoxically captures the most alluring qualities of elite Bordeaux and Burgundy. To enjoy Simone’s Palette Rouge is to have enjoyed one of the finest, most unique experiences wine can offer. These wines are region-defining, incomparable in taste, and their cellar life is nearly inexhaustible.

Spontaneous co-fermentation of all varieties in foudres for 13-15 days. Grapes are 100% destemmed and crushed. 1 year in foudre, 1 year in neutral barrel.

ABOUT THIS PRODUCER

Château Simone is among the small handful of estates in the Provence region that are making something other than just light-hearted rosé.

Bandol, Cassis, Bellet, Les Baux and Palette are five appellations that form just a drop in the Provence wine bucket, but provide much of the region's top reds and whites (and yes, some rosé). Palette, an AOC of just 111 acres located just a few minutes south of Aix-en-Provence, benefits from limestone soils surrounding the base of the Ste.-Victoire mountain. Rougier's property, a 300-acre domaine that has been in his family for generations, has 57 acres of vines (just more than half the entire AOC) that sit amid the nooks and crannies of pine-covered hillsides, featuring north-facing terraces that ripen slowly and late despite basking in the Provencal sun.

Production from the estate totals about 8,300 cases annually, with 10 percent going to the U.S. Half the production is white, 40 percent red and the rest Rosé.