Extremely Pale Rose

Jamie Ivey

A chance conversation with a Provençal vigneron leads to the most unlikely of quests - a hunt to find France's palest rosé.
Extremely Pale Rosé is a richly entertaining and informative account of the travels of Jamie, his wife Tanya and their ebullient friend Peter Swift, as they take up this challenge. Giving up their lives in London, they quickly discover an unfortunate truth - the French won't treat rosé or their quest seriously. Rosé is seen as a poor cousin to red and white wine, drunk largely as an aperitif or to wash away the taste of spicy food. And although for many Brits pale rosé has come to epitomize the south of France, French wine connoisseurs view it as flavourless water fit only for tourists.

In bars, boulangeries and boucheries from Bordeaux to Bandol, Jamie, Tanya and Peter are recommended diverse vineyards to visit and as they travel they encounter the beginnings of a rosé revolution - French attitudes to pale pink wine appear to be changing, but is it too little too late to help them succeed in their quest?

All admirers of Peter Mayle's A Year in Provence and Bon Appetit!, and Carol Drinkwater's Olive Farm series will be absorbed by this book which is anything but a pale imitation.