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.

I am very particular about ros and if the nose and/or colour are off in any way you will never get me to like the wine. With more ros than ever being consumed in the UK there are more terrible wines than ever crowding our shelves.

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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