WINE OF THE WEEK: G de Galoupet Rosé 2024, Côtes de Provence

£18.50–£22.50, Ocado, Jeroboams, Laithwaites, Averys

There were three very different rosés in the running this week (the big reveal in a moment). I chose G de Galoupet because it’s new and groundbreaking. It’s also delicious, obviously, or it wouldn’t be here.

In fact, it’s not the wine so much as the packaging that’s groundbreaking. If you’re immediately thinking, “I’m not interested in fancy packaging, especially of the outlandishly over-designed Provence kind,” please hear what I have to say. The G de Galoupet bottle is as kind to the planet as any glass wine bottle so far.

At a featherweight 300g, it’s one of lightest in the world and it’s made from 85% recycled and recyclable amber glass. Amber/brown glass is desperately unfashionable for rosé because it obscures the wine's colour, but we all need to make it fashionable because it offers the best protection against the damage that UV light does to wine (think sunshine). Colourless glass gives almost no protection.

On top of the lightweight glass, there’s no aluminium or plastic capsule, the paper used on the neck and for the label on the back of the bottle is recycled paper and the rest of the bottle is screen-printed with organic ink.

All this is from an estate that is committed to regenerative practices (for which it will soon be certified) and to being a beacon of biodiversity and sustainability on a large scale. I wrote more about it here.

Let’s get back to the wine, a very pale salmon rosé with a fresh, delicately resiny herb, peach, wild strawberry and sea-breeze nose and a palate that brings in grapefruit zest, ginger, cream, subtle texture and a hint of appetite-whetting salt and bitterness on the finish. All told, there’s a lot playing along together in its medium-bodied frame.

Winemaking in brief: a blend of 60% Grenache, 15% Cinsault, 10% Rolle, 10% Syrah and 5% Tibouren, fermented in stainless steel and aged on fine lees. Most of the grapes are from Galoupet’s own 69-ha vineyard.

If there’s any left in the bottle after your aperitif, take it to the table for something like a salade niçoise, whipped feta and courgette tart, carpaccio of sea bream or sea bass, or either fish baked whole with rosemary or thyme. 13%. Empty bottle weight: 300g.

The big reveal: the other two rosés in the running were Ksara Sunset 2023 from the Bekaa Valley and Lalomba Finca Lalinde 2023 from Rioja. I’ll be saying more about them in my summer rosé round-up, if not before.

G de Galoupet Rosé 2024, Côtes de Provence, France

£18.50, Ocado, Jeroboams; £22.50, Laithwaites, Averys

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