It was London in August: Chateau D’Esclans
Rosé wines are fantastic for sipping poolside, pairing with food, and enjoying year-round. Discover the best rosé wines for any budget here.
By Kristen Shirley
As she sat watching a singular airplane float through the blue sky overhead, she envisaged the peaceful warmth of South of France. She could smell the floral headiness, eyes closed; hear the sound of someone splashing in the piscine and somewhere in the background, the comforting hum of crickets.
The sun shone so brightly in London on this August day that as long as she lifted her head slightly and kept her eyes closed, she almost believed she was in Provence.
Opening her eyes, the reality of being in her city garden whilst the floods of paperwork completed over the day surrounding the complexities of her family’s estate lay before her, it slightly reimagined. It was a beautiful day – and she allowed herself finally the possibility of dreaming that next year, with all of this complete, she’d feel the warm Provencal grass in between her bare toes reminiscent of Summers as a child. For now, small treats whilst living alone; cooking (today a gently spiced seabass with a daring orange glaze), lifting her face to the sun when it appeared, good music harmonised with sips of her favourite Summer wine would more than fill her with gratitude.
As she poured a crisp glass of Whispering Angel, took a bite of her creation and a sip of the rose; her taste buds alight with dry orange and an after-burst of berries, she could have been anywhere at all – but she knew her heart was home.
Whispering Angel, though so apt a name for its profile, never really whispered. In fact, it arrived on the scene with such a graceful yet unapologetic entrance that it may as well have been surrounded by its own entourage. It was of sorts; on the menus of every major hot spot. Personally, I first tried it in 2017 on the roof terrace at Harvey Nichols in London which I used to frequent quite often before it became overtly touristy.
It must be said that up till only a few years ago, I was never really a rose girl (I mean I love all sorts of wines but rose would never be my first choice). In fact, years ago the closest I’d come to regularly ordering rose on a beach day would be a rather more shocking Rioja Rosado or similar at Marbella Club. Fruity, summery but mostly such a divine red colour; at some point I think I was rather obsessed with it. Which is surprising because I only really ever drink champagne (to be fair, I was only 22 at the time). But the allure of a typical provencal dry rose so beloved by the summer set has somewhat alluded me until more recently.
Indeed, without exaggeration, it wasn’t really until Whispering Angel came along that I actually got excited about ordering rose over a lunch for example. Sitting with my best friend visiting from New York and joined by another friend of hers from Chicago, we were united that sunny afternoon in London at what used to be my favourite store restaurant over none other than Whispering Angel. The uniqueness of this fact is that it served such very different taste buds. K wanted something sort of complex with quite a lot of fruitiness, S wanted something super dry and I of course was somewhere in-between (obviously). Alas, by the time I fell for the creation of this daring vineyard, it had become so trendy I daren’t admit it to anyone for fear of being one of those people that follows the crowds…but in this case, the crowds were extremely cool for a change. It was a bit like when Taittinger became a little more commercial and I couldn’t help but be extremely pleased about it because it just meant they served my favourite champagne almost everywhere.
It was a delight to attend a tasting recently with Chateau D’Esclans where Kelly Stevenson, the brand ambassador, told the story (wearing a fabulous pink blazer, it must be said) of the vineyard – graduating us spectators from the most beloved Whispering Angel to Rock Angel to the houses’ own name offering ‘Chateau D’Esclans’. The latter, until Covid, was only available on the Wine Lists of some pretty major restaurants. During lockdown, fans of the wine were so disheartened that it wasn’t available to purchase freely that Chateau D’Esclans decided to offer it to select merchants for public consumption.
There was only one rose wine that for me could compete with Whispering Angel in being consistently sophisticated yet easy going and extremely accessible to many taste palettes. I won’t mention it here because I don’t want to dilute but sufficed to say, it has since been discontinued so for me, Whispering Angel takes the crown. This is all about Chateau D’Esclans and rightly so.
With a history dating back to before the twelfth century, it is only recently that it became known for some of the best rose wine in existence. And of course this is a grace de Sacha Lichine who purchased it in 2006 and recognised that there was opportune to raise the profile of rose to rival some of the best wines in the world. He has of course done just that.
While I will admit that Whispering Angel’s big sister, Rock Angel is a bit too melon-centric for my tastes, I enjoyed all of the other offerings we tried. But for me, Whispering Angel is so perfectly balanced with a gentle complexity and lots of fun notes too that there’s very little that can compete for a consistently perfect choice for our rose-moments.
Sante!
