Rose 2022 Vintage Snapshot
One begins to feel like a broken record describing French growing seasons in this era of climate change. Yet, while the 2022 vintage—which comprises the bulk of our offering this year—was broadly similar weather-wise to recent vintages like 2019 and 2020 (very hot and very dry, with early flowering and an early harvest), the overall character of the 2022 rosés is different: nimbler in feel, less weighty on the palate, and slightly lower in alcohol across the board. While this is certainly due in part to the irreducible uniqueness of individual vintages regardless of their surface similarities, it is the case that growers across France have been adjusting their working methods in recent years to accommodate this “new normal”—pruning later, retaining more leaf cover during the season, and harvesting earlier and more rapidly (especially important when maturity levels are skyrocketing during these atypically hot harvest periods)—and these adjustments have borne positive results, not only for whites and reds but for rosés as well, as this collection of 2022s demonstrates convincingly.