Provençal Pairings: Wine with Food Rose | Rosé
by David Scott Allen
Winery: Château Léoube
Cuvée: Singulier
Appellation: Côtes de Provence
Type: Rosé
Vintage: 2020
Grape Varieties: Grenache, Cinsault, Cabernet Sauvignon
Alcohol: 14%
Average Retail Price: FR €180.00
It isn’t often that I have the opportunity to share a very special wine of this ilk. And when that does happen, it needs an incredibly special dish to pair with it. The bottle was a magnum of Château Léoube Singulier and it is, indeed, a singular wine. Susan and I decided this would be a good Valentine’s post, so I created a new dish: Chicken Ispahan, based on a famous Pierre Hermé pastry of the same name. Flavors — perfect for your Valentine — include rose, raspberry, and lychee. You can get the recipe on Cocoa & Lavender.
And, spoiler alert: very few (if any) bottles of this wine are available in the United States, and probably not so many even in France. They only produce 800 magnums a year. However, don’t worry — any good Provence rosé will work well with my Chicken Ispahan.
This organic wine is a beautiful, light salmon pink, and it is quite floral on the nose — think tropical flowers like jasmine and frangipane — along with bright fruits like strawberry and peach.
The strawberry plays through on the palate along with ripe, white peach, and it really pairs perfectly with the flavors in the chicken: raspberry, rose, and lychee. When having it with a bit of the sauce and chicken, I swear I tasted rose and raspberry in the wine.
This wine is exquisite; it is beautifully balanced with a soft, savory minerality in the mouth, and a long, gentle finish. I would love to have another bottle but that is not to be. However, I will have the memories of the two incredibly special people who shared it with us, and that counts for a lot.
A beautiful, beautiful French Rosé to go with an equally beautiful dish.
Velva
It is a beautiful wine — I was so lucky to share it with our friends. The dish really brings out the fruit and floral notes in the wine.
Will have to look for that lychee potion a TW The dish looks beautiful and délicieuse
It sounds like you’re in France, Jocelyne, and I imagine it would be fairly easy to find a sweetened lychee syrup there. It may not be the same one I used, but I’m sure it would work really well. I hope you have the opportunity to make it, and have it with a nice rosé.