Bila-Haut Rosé Perfect With Shrimp At Edisto Beach

Les Vignes de Bila-Haut Rosé Pays d’Oc 2014, France
Cost: $13-16
I love a good Rosé, and France seems to turn out a large number of them. This beauty from a lesser-known region in southwest France is a gem.
It is fresh and well-balanced, a gorgeous light pink in the glass with citrus and floral aromas inviting you in. As the days get warmer and we head to summer this is a perfect wine for those summer meals.

This is a delicate, elegant Rosé that would be wonderful sipping on the deck, but really becomes a star when you have it with a meal. There is plenty of fruit, but the crisp mineral flavors and the long citrus finish make it a perfect food wine.
That’s just how owner and winemaker Michel Chapoutier wanted this wine to turn out. Looking to create a Rosé to go with his red and white offerings, he decided the grapes most planted in Roussillon wouldn’t work well. So he found Cinsault from the Gard district to deliver red fruit and floral aromas and blended it with Grenache, which brings the minerality.
It is a great combination that produces a memorable wine to help draw attention to the new quality wines emerging from southwest France. The wine was fermented and aged in tanks to maintain the lively fresh flavors.
Chapoutier is an avid amateur cook, so he wants his wine to accompany lively conversation and a table full of food.
“I’m focused more on length and aftertaste than on the nose, because the wine is meant to be married with food,” he said.
Winery: Maison M. Chapoutier is a family-owned winery and negociant business founded in 1808 and based in Rhone’s Tain-l’Hermitage. The company is famous for its northern and southern Rhone wines. It also produces wines in the Languedoc-Roussillon and Alsace, and partners with local producers in Portugal and Australia.
In 1999 Michel Chapoutier bought a long-neglected property in Roussillon in southwest France. He already had made a name for himself making great wine in the Rhone region. But he saw something in Roussillon that he thought would produce great wines.
“Roussillon has the potential to be as great as Bordeaux, Burgundy or the Rhone,” he said. “All great wine regions have a high diversity of extremely complex soils.”
In the 190-acre estate he bought in Roussillon, Chapoutier found a mix of schist, gneiss and clay soils. On the slopes of the Agly Valley, the vineyards are in the commune of Latour-de-France, as close as you can get to Spain while still in France.
The land didn’t look like much when Chapoutier arrived in the rugged, rocky country dotted by bushes, sparse trees and wild herbs that filled the air with aromas of smoky rosemary, thyme, juniper, lavender and olive. The land cost less to buy than more established wine regions, but it costs more to raise good vines.
Steep, rocky slopes rise almost 500 feet above the Mediterranean Sea that brings favorable weather for the vineyards. Minimal rain and the drying Mistral breeze during the growing season combine for perfect weather for Syrah, Grenache and Carignan that grow there. Some growers think the conditions are even better than in the Rhone Valley.
The rugged terrain has a turbulent past as well. In the 13th Century the Cathars fought the established church and a famous ascetic religious-military order once had a house of refuge there. They were known as the Knights Templar, among the most skilled fighting men of the Crusades. A cross and shield featured on the wine label honors their story.
Bila-Haut also has a hearty red blend that is primarily Syrah with some Grenache and Carignan and a crisp white that blends Grenache Blanc, Grenache Gris, Vermentino and Macabeo.

Goes with: My wife Teri and I had this wine on a recent trip to Edisto Beach with a group of friends. After taking a trip to Napa Valley with three other couples five years ago I have stayed closed to them. We especially look forward to our yearly trips to Edisto, where we kick back, relax, drink a little wine, and eat good food.
Wine and food seem to be a centerpiece of our trips, though we do enjoy catching up with each others’ lives and just hanging out together. I always pick up a good book or movie recommendation when we’re together.

At Edisto we cook seafood most nights, though we occasionally head to a local restaurant. We also drink good wine with our meal every night, and the table discussions are lively. The Edisto trip always is one of the most enjoyable weeks of my year.
The night we had the Bila-Haut Rosé we had fried shrimp, red beans and rice and salad. What a feast! John D even made his special cocktail sauce that features plenty of horseradish.
The robust Rosé was wonderful with the shrimp and even held its own with the tangy cocktail sauce and Cajun beans and rice. I served it chilled.

We started drinking the wine before the meal and carried it over to the table. I liked it as an aperitif, but it really was much better when paired with the shrimp and red beans and rice.
Our group, which we modestly call the Magnificent 8, loves to try new wines, and they all gave this one an enthusiastic thumbs up. I’ll tell you about some other wines we sampled in the weeks ahead.