Château Auguste Grand Rosé

A Bordeaux rosé with Provençal line. Limestone plots, hand harvest, music in the vines.

The Grand Rosé is the serious pink of the house. The shop titles the current bottle 2024. It is grown on limestone plots chosen for complexity, from organically farmed grapes, with no added color and no flavorings. Stems stay on through the hand harvest so the fruit does not oxidize early. Genodics — music at dawn and dusk — is part of the farming, not a slogan on a back label someone else printed.

Tom Mullen, in Forbes, wrote the note the maison quotes: soft, well-integrated aromas of rose, lime, lemon, and a little nuttiness. A supple wine. Tannins and acidity integrated. Provençal linearity, which is not the usual compliment for Bordeaux pink, and is the reason this one is worth the detour. He called it a well-made rosé of a kind that is genuinely hard to find from Bordeaux.

Twenty-four dollars is the ask. Treat it like a wine, not a pool prop — though the maison’s own photographs are not afraid of a pool. Chill it, pour it in a real glass, and notice the nuttiness. That is the tell.