A dreamy, hypnotic rosé

2007 Chteau Pontet Bagatelle, La Rose de Bagatelle, Coteaux d'Aix en Provence, France (£7.95, From vineyardsdirect.com ).

I tasted a load of southern French ross the other day and was rather appalled by what I found. Dirty wines, 2007 vintage wines that were browning already, wines that smelled drainsy, wines that smelled fishy, high acid, low acid and even sweet wines! It was a real mess.

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So when this utterly stunning wine turned up, with its palest of pale pink colour and unavoidably hypnotic aroma, I was transfixed. Misreading the label in a rush to get to my laptop to type it up for you, I initially wrote the name as La Ros de Bagatelle, but on closer inspection I saw that the name was, in fact, La Rose The Dew! I loved it even more.

This is the first wine made by Garry and Sabine Stephen (Aussie, former London-based banker) in their newfound life as vignerons. A Grenache-based stunner, with only 10% Syrah to make up the numbers, this is a dreamy wine and it makes others look dull and lifeless, particularly at this price. You may even like to know that magnums are available at £16.45 now that's a big bottle of dew!

Matthew Jukes is a winner of the International Wine & Spirit Competition's Communicator of the Year

Matthew Jukes has been the MoneyWeek wine correspondent since 2006.

He has worked in the UK wine business for well over three decades and during this time has written 14 wine books. His four highly-acclaimed, annual wine reports – the Burgundy En Primeur Report, the Bordeaux En Primeur Report, the Piemonte Report and the 100 Best Australian Wines – are published on his website.

Matthew is a winner of the International Wine and Spirit Competition's Communicator of the Year Trophy. His thoughts, recommendations and tastings notes are followed very closely by the wine world at large.