Much loved French style filling the bottle shop shelves

Domaine Tempier Bandol rose winery in Provence, France. Picture: Supplied

The prevalence of pink on the Australian wine scene manifests itself in many ways.

Wine columns regularly and eagerly roll out the ‘‘rose revolution’’ angle; pink wines continue to encroach on the bottle shop fridge space once dominated by whites; and at countless social gatherings drenched in spring sun, someone will open a bottle of rose and declare: “Did you know they now consume more pink wine in France than white?”

It is those pale examplars from southern France that are setting the stylistic direction most Australian winemakers follow.

When I first started in the wine trade back in the 1990s, the rose section of the wine shop in which I pretended to work comprised the famously big-bottomed bottle of Portugal’s Mateus, a wine only just behind the millipede as the worst thing from that country to reach our shores, and a handful of bottles the colour of a drag queen’s lipstick and packed full of residual sugar.

While they still exist, the spike in sales is being driven by the wines inspired by Provence, pale, petally pink things in the spectrum I once described at a public tasting as the “colour of cheeks blushed by erotic exertion”, prompting several people to walk out and one particularly bold woman in the front row to ask, “Which cheeks do you mean?”

It’s not hard to understand why these wines have always been loved over there and are becoming increasingly popular here.

Great pink wine is a key indicator of a culture that understands wine as a lifestyle accessory, a culture that sees clearly how it fits into the overall picture of a life lived well.

Great rose is serious wine that doesn’t have to be taken seriously, a wine that provides pleasure in environments full of distractions.

I once spent a blissful week in Villefranche-sur-Mer with an unkempt winemaker from the Adelaide Hills and our families, rarely moving from a beachside bar, eating terrines and salads Nicoise, drinking magnums of rose from Bandol and gazing across the water at the grand villa where the Rolling Stones made Exile on Main Street.

The wine was sensational but the only time it barged into conversation was when one of us asked the other, “Shall we get one more?” It was perfect.

Howard Park Margaret River Rose. Picture: Supplied

There is always a place for wines that know theirs.

That rose made in the dry, savoury style of Provence has become so popular in this country points to the maturing of Australian wine culture.

The signs extend beyond simple sales figures.

At last week’s Royal Adelaide Wine Show, the rose entries reached triple figures for the first time and fought it out for the first rose trophy awarded in the show’s 172-year history.

And you really know something’s afoot when you open a box of tasting samples from one producer and every wine inside is pink.

The Burch family of Howard Park and other vinous ventures are wine obsessed and well-travelled, so it’s not surprising their latest releases are drawn from the heart of the pink wine zeitgeist.

They all show the highly skilled hand of Howard Park’s chief winemaker, Janice McDonald.

The 2017 rose under their Mon Tout label is a blend of shiraz and pinot noir with small, enervating splashes of pinot gris and chardonnay. It’s bright, balanced and polished.

There is also a pale pink wine under the Marchand and Burch label that represents the family’s cross-continental co-production with French winemaker Pascal Marchand.

An almost equal blend of shiraz and pinot noir, predominantly from Great Southern with a small portion from Margaret River, it’s a pleasingly savoury wine that skilfully delivers the lively acidity these wines need without sacrificing the gentle and graceful mid-palate texture that makes ordering a second bottle an easy decision.

Perhaps the pick of them, for me at least, is the first pink wine under the Howard Park label. The fruit sourcing is entirely Margaret River, shiraz from Wilyabrup and pinot noir from down south around Karridale.

It’s squeaky and fresh, smells of crushed petals and dried red berries, and finishes with a fine, crunchy minerality that, just like those wines consumed within sight of Keith Richards’s old house, delivers real satisfaction.