Rethinking Pink

Several weeks ago, I waxed poetic on the refreshing, rewarding, rejuvenating effects of crisp pink wines, especially during the hazy, hot days of summer. The one redeeming quality I didn’t mention was that these wines, whether they’re called rosés, rosatos or rosados, are inexpensive. You would be hard-pressed to find one over $25; most are under $15.

That is what makes the pink wines of Sacha Lichine confounding. His winery, Château d’Esclans, specializes in pink wines and his line of four wines start at $20 and top out at $100 per bottle.

How does one sell a $100 bottle of rosé? That’s exactly what I asked Lichine during his sales trip to Atlanta in June. “When you go into a shop with your wine, you know [the owner] is waiting for you,” says the 49-year-old Lichine. “The first thing he says is: ‘If you think you can sell rosés at this price, you’re mad!’ Then he laughs at you. But I get them to try it. When they get it in their mouth, then they don’t know quite what to do.”

Typically, what the shop owner does is buy the stuff—consumers, too. Lichine has sold every last drop of his first two vintages and will soon do the same with his current wines. I sat down with Lichine at the Lobby Bar of the Ritz-Carlton Buckhead toward the end his Atlanta visit; sales were good here. One local retailer bought his last few cases of Esclans ($45/bottle) with a reservation to buy magnums of next year’s vintage; a public tasting for 18 people at Sherlock’s Wine Merchant in Decatur netted sales of two cases of Whispering Angel ($20/bottle), a half case of Les Clans ($75/bottle) and several bottles of Garrus ($100/bottle).

“I have not found anyone who has not liked these wines,” says the smiling Lichine, who presents a jolly, Bacchus-like figure. “Even with Mouton-Rothschild or Haut-Brion, you find people that don’t like them. They don’t like the tannins, they’re too powerful or some other thing. Not with these.”

Bordeaux lovers, of course, know the name Lichine. Alexis Lichine, Sacha’s father, was the renowned wine importer and owner of Bordeaux properties Château Lascombes and Château Prieuré-Lichine. The elder Lichine passed away in 1989.

The younger Lichine was born in the Bordeaux town of Margaux, but moved to New York with his mother when he was four. He made regular visits with his father and eventually went into the family business. He ran the fourth-growth Château Prieuré-Lichine for a dozen years and generally received high marks for his performance. Yet, he could never escape the large shadow cast by his father.

He sold the château in 1999 and left the famed region behind, intent on making his own mark in the wine industry. But doing what?

After several years of mostly bottling and selling other people’s wine, he came across a 700-acre estate in Provence called Château d’Esclans with about 100 acres of vineyards, including many ancient grenache vines. The estate, including the five-story, 19th-century mansion, was in disrepair, but Lichine saw potential and he had an idea, an absolutely crazy idea: make the world’s best and most expensive pink wine.

Crazy? Crazy like a fox is more like it. Pink wine sales rose by 42 percent in 2008, which came on the heels of a 50-plus percent increase in 2007. People are into pink wine these days.

“Thirty years ago, if you drank pink wine, you were a sissy. It was spirits that real men drank,” said Lichine mockingly thumping his chest. Drinking fashions change and so do the perceptions that pink wine is merely a cheap, simplistic, sweet wine.

“The days of Mateus and Lancers are gone,” said Lichine, who is banking on this trend to the tune of $26 million, representing his purchase and rehabilitation of Château d’Esclans.

With the help of Patrick Léon, the retired winemaker for Château Mouton-Rothschild, Lichine treats the grenache grapes as if they were fine Burgundies. He uses small, wooden vats to carefully and slowly ferment the different lots. He has fitted the vats with $500,000 worth of refrigeration tubes to tightly control the speed of the fermentation, which can last months. Combine this with the charismatic fruit produced by 80-plus-year-old vines and you have an expensive, sophisticated, dry wine that’s pink.

Prior to Lichine’s arrival, I held a not-so-serious, blind tasting, conducted where I do my best work: poolside. Indeed, all the wines were uniquely delicious, among the best pinks I’ve ever had.

Not discounting the need to put tasty juice in the bottle, the affable, gregarious Lichine explains his business model. “You make money two ways in the wine business: high volume and low margins or low volume and high margins.” He’s figured out a way to make a line of wines that do both.

Lichine would be the first one to tell you that it doesn’t stink to have a palatial château in Provence, but you gotta sell a lot of wine to pay for it.

2007 Château d’Esclans, Les Clans, Rosé, Côtes de Provence, France

• $75

• Golden Thumb Award

• How can a wine be rich and completely refreshing? Best of the four wines with flavors of fresh peach, raspberries and ripe strawberries with an enigmatic balance between buttery creaminess and crisp acidity. Delicious chilled and at cellar temperature.

2007 Château d’Esclans, Garrus, Rosé, Côtes de Provence, France

• $100

• Two Thumbs Way Up

• Pleasant, fresh berry flavors and aromas with lots of spicy notes of nutmeg, cinnamon, etc. Very crisp, but with a distinct creaminess. It had an amazingly long finish that showed some peach and mango qualities.

2007 Château d’Esclans, Esclans, Rosé, Côtes de Provence, France

• $45

• Two Thumbs Up

• Light, bright and pleasant, it had charming aromas and flavors of minerals, flowers and red berries. Quite refreshing and the most straightforward of the four.

2007 Château d’Esclans, Whispering Angel, Rosé, Côtes de Provence, France

• $20

• Two Thumbs Up

• Pleasant with flavors and aromas of raspberries and strawberries. It also offered some interesting notes of spiced almonds, but not as crisp and/or refined as the other three.