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from such producers as Guigal and Krug. But we were interested in the local talent. We put ourselves in the hands of the proprietor, who brought out a bottle of rosé and advised us to arm ourselves against the sun with one of the many straw hats that were hanging in the trees around us. Hot and thirsty as I was, I found it hard to imagine that anything had ever tasted so good as that rosé. It hardly needed food, given the continuing suspense in the mouth of the sweet fruit dueling with the citrusy acidity. But it played a strong supporting role with my first course—a dish that I hesitate to call tomato soup since it was actually the Platonic essence of tomato, highlighted with basil and other herbs. The wine continued to shine with the salmon with herbs in parchment, and I was loath to give it up even with the arrival of the clafoutis, made from the cherries that had just come into season.

Baique told us that the producer, Domaine de La Citadelle, was just a few miles away in Ménerbes, and he eventually drove us over to the castle that houses the winery to meet the proprietor, the squirish and impeccably tweeded M. Yves Riusset-Rouard, who made his pile, in part, as producer of the salacious Emmanuelle movies. In addition to rosé, M. Riusset-Rouard makes some impressive Cabernet-based reds, but his most distinctive accomplishment may be the creation of the Corkscrew Museum on the premises, which houses the world’s largest collection of these vital implements.

A few days later, at a cliffside restaurant overlooking the Mediterranean in Marseille, I discovered the ultimate food match for Provençal rosé: bouillabaisse. Even if, especially if, you’re the kind of girl who thinks she’s too sophisticated for rosé, you will be converted by this match. Of course, the Marseillaises—included winemaker Jean-Luc Colombo, who was my dinner partner—claim that you can’t get true bouillabaisse outside of the Mediterranean. The good news is that while no wine will ever taste quite as good at home in Des Moines as it will in, say, the lavender-scented hilltop town of Corbierres, in the age of refrigerated shipping containers it should be pretty much the same beverage.

The wine I was swilling with my bouillabaisse, Mas de La Dame, is one of many good Provençal rosés available in the States. It comes from the Les Baux appellation—the hills south of Saint-Rémy. And if the starkly beautiful landscape around the seventeenth-century farmhouse looks familiar, that may be because van Gogh painted it while he was living in Saint-Rémy. The estate employs the consulting services of Colombo, who races between estates up and down the Rhône Valley in his BMW. Like most Provençal rosés, Mas de La Dame is made from a blend of red wine grapes—in this case, Grenache, Cabernet, and Syrah—which are removed from their pigment-bearing skins before fermentation.

The best-known appellation for Provençal rosés is Bandol, located on the coast between Marseille and Toulon. Domaine Tempier and Château Pradeaux are my perennial favorites. The Côtes de Provence appellation is the home of the famous Domaine Ott, which comes in that funny Greek-urn-shaped bottle and costs almost twice as much as the average Provençal rosé. But at times, with certain foods, it can seem more inspired than a first-growth Bordeaux, as I seem to recall it did over a lunch with English friends at a restaurant called Tetou on the beach at Golfe Juan. We were celebrating my friend’s Simon’s birthday. We ate fish soup and langoustines and the Domaine Ott kept coming as the waves lapped the sand and bathers wandered past a few feet from our table. I haven’t seen Simon for several years, but whenever I open a bottle of Domaine Ott, as I did recently on a cold day in New York, I think about that afternoon on the beach.

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