MIRAVAL ROSÉ: THE HOLLYWOOD WINE

Chateaux Miraval is found in Provence, between Nizza and Marsiglia. It belongs to the AOC Cotes des Provence.

“So?”

The chateaux is famous for being (or for having been) Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie’s summer home. Don’t worry, we’re not about to get all film-gossip on you. They produce one of the most famous wine in the world, the Miraval Rosé. The now ex-Hollywood-couple acquired the estate in 2008, after having flown over it in a helicopter and fell madly in love with it. The estate seems to always be in the hands of someone famous: the pianist Jacques Loussier created a recording studio there, where even Sting and Pink Floyd left their marks. Within the estate, there are 35 rooms (even a chapel). Fun fact: the grapes at this vineyard are what produce Pink Floyd Rosé.

The estate has always produced simple Vin De Pays, which is basically a common table wine. Then, there was the qualitative turning point, which was definitively stated in 2012 with the first produced bottle of Miraval Rosé.

To produce the wine, Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie put their faith in the expert hands of Marc Perrin and his family, owner and producer of the Chateau Beaucastel wine.

“That’s quite a handful of chateaux in Provence, eh?”

The wine is made from the grapes grown on the best plots of land the estate has. Of 400 hectares, 30 are completely occupied by vineyard. “Yeah this is a super sweet story, but is this wine actually good or did Brangelina pay you to plug their stuff?”

The first 6,000 bottles of this stuff were sold in France in just six hours. In Wine Spectator, one of the biggest magazines that focuses on the world of wine, the year 2012 earned 90 out of 100 points. That’s like, a really good score.

In the year 2013, according to Wine Spectator, the Miraval Rosé was declared the best rosé in the world.

The bottle has a very unique shape. And, if you’re suspecting that the Hollywood couple are megalomaniacs, you’d be incorrect on that: there’s no reference to their names on the bottle, besides subtly on the back label:

“bottled by Jolie-Pitt & Perrin”

The price?

Somewhere between $23 and $30 usually. In Italy it goes for about €20.

Even if the wine label doesn’t seem to say it’s organic on the bottle, all their vineyards follow the rules of organic wine production. They only decided not to label it as organic because sometimes the grapes come from nearby vineyards, and they wanted to leave their options open for future wine production. For gossip-lovers, pay close attention to the vintage 2017– the year they got divorced. Even though they were separated, the wine continued to be produced!

Have you ever tried it?