Among the big stories to emerge from the results of the 2024 Decanter World Wine Awards (DWWA) was the rise of rosé. Wine drinkers are ‘drinking pink’, encouraged by the marketing clout and celebrity stardust of plush-pocketed rosé producers – and an uptick in quality.

‘It won’t surprise readers to know that our rosé wine entries grow with every year that passes (we judged almost 800 dry and medium-dry still pink wines this year),’ the DWWA judging panel commented.

There is more rosé around and it’s of better quality; the term ‘premium’ is now an apt descriptor for top-class rosé, not just red, white and sparkling wines.

This year two rosé wines – one still, one sparkling – were awarded Best in Show. There were just 50 wines out of the 18,143 evaluated to receive this plaudit in 2024, accounting for just 0.28% of the total wines tasted.

DWWA 2024: Top-scoring rosé wines to try

Château d’Esclans, Les Clans, Côtes de Provence, France 2022

97 Best in Show
Delicate peach-pink in colour, with a haunting aromatic profile that mixes cream, white almond, peach and gardenia notes with pastel finesse. On the palate, it is deeper than many of its peers to the point where you could almost say ‘concentrated’, and perhaps shows brighter acidity than some of our previous winners. That cream, though, naps and envelops all, and the white almond depth fuses admirably with the wine’s vinosity to provide the dominant structural frame, rather than relying on acidity. Is there even a hint of green olive? Maybe; maybe not; it’s Provence rosé, after all. Hints and whispers are all. Alc 14%