A long time ago, when I was doing my second wine course at the excellent WSET wine school in Bermondsey, we tasted a Tavel wine. Back then it was just another new thing to try, among a lot of others, but for some reason the name and the flavour stayed with me. I looked for a few years for one I could sell in the shop but could never find anything. Until now that is.

Tavel is a tiny appellation in the Southern Rhone that can only produce rose. It is made from the familiar South Rhône grapes; Grenache, Syrah, Cinsault and Mourvèdre. What makes it unusual is the colour; it is brilliantly and unfashionably dark. Dark to the point of looking like a light red. The colour comes, of course, from the skins and Tavel wines are left a bit longer in contact with the skins; giving more colour and, I would argue, more character.

I wasn’t thinking about Tavel when I arrived at a little Rhône tasting in London. There were a lot of great wines to try and then two stunning wines from Gael Petit. These are from old vines, he does a natural yeast, semi-carbonic macération, uses very low sulphur and allows the wine to have a malolactic fermentation. That is technical speak for making a wine that beautifully shows where it is from. There is a huge, joyful liveliness to these wines, they are bouncy, super fresh and very hard to put down. Very quickly you find the bottle is empty.

As so often seems to happen in life, having finally re-found Tavel, what should happen but another dark rose turns up. This time a stunning Sangiovese from the excellent Ficomontanino winery in Chiusi, Southern Tuscany.

The wines now are made by Maria Sole, who is the third generation of her family to work these vineyards. Being Tuscany the vines are mostly Sangiovese but with some lesser known varieties; Verdello, Ciliegiolo, Gamay. Maria also produces a little olive oil. What makes these wines stand out is their freshness and elegance; that and the pale rose of course.

The wonderful pale rose is called Noble Kara. It is 100% Sangiovese, grown bio-dynamically and hand picked. The wine is a natural yeast fermentation with a short time on skins, though clearly long enough to achieve that super cool colour. This wine, is low sulphur and is unfiltered, it too is incredibly vibrant and youthful in style. There a little herbal edge from the Sangiovese and plenty of fruit but the freshness is what really drives it along. We also stock their lovely red called Bulgarelli.

Please do try these wines, they are a brilliant and exciting style. One note on serving; as befits their colour the temperature you want is somewhere between the fridge and the kitchen, 10-12 centigrade would be perfect. That can be a little hard to achieve but perhaps the best method is to put a room temperature bottle on ice 20 min before you want it?

Dark rose. It’s a thing, it's the wine of the summer. You heard it here first!

Enjoy your wine