Wine of the week: a scrummy, cocktail-like rosé

published 27 April 2012

2011 Domaine de Millet Ros, Ctes de Gascogne, France (£8.95, Yapp Brothers, 01747-860423, www.yapp.co.uk).

My wine recommendation this week is half tasting note and half ground-breaking science! Let's start with science. There is a little-known grape in France called egiodola it is a cross between fer servadou and abouriou (themselves not exactly everyday propositions). Pierre-Marcel Durquety came up with them in 1954. There are only 300 hectares planted and Millet presumably has a fair tranche.

L'egiodola, in Basque, means pure blood', which, bearing in mind the colour of this wine, is not far wrong. This beautiful, plump, red cherry, cocktail-like ros is made from 80% egiodola and 20% cabernet franc. It is rich enough to go with decent barbecue fare. Being also bone dry, if you wanted to glug it as an aperitif, no one would complain. It looks a very smart choice indeed and the price tag is competitive.

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All in all, there is a lot going for this wine. For me, the label and hypnotic aroma, food matching acumen and scrummy flavour are only really useful once you have memorised the science. That way you can impress your pals and give this wine an added dimension of wine trivia intrigue.

Matthew Jukes is a winner of the International Wine & Spirit Competition's Communicator of the Year (www.matthewjukes.com).

Matthew Jukes has worked in the UK wine business for well over three decades and during this time has written 14 wine books.

Matthew regularly lectures, judges, speaks at wine conferences and runs masterclass tastings for both corporate and private clients all over the world. Matthew is also the creator of his ground-breaking initiative, the One Day Wine School, an indulgent day of tasting and learning first performed in 2006.

He has been the MoneyWeek wine correspondent since 2006 and has written a weekly column for the Daily Mail’s Weekend Magazine since 1999. 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, www.matthewjukes.com.

Matthew is one of the world’s leading experts on Australian wine and, with Brisbane-based wine writer Tyson Stelzer, runs an annual competition in Australia to find ‘The Great Australian Red’. He was made Honorary Australian of the Year in the UK at the 2012 Australia Day Foundation Gala dinner.

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.