Rosé wine, you've come a long way Some credit for the upscaling of rosé must go to Sacha Lichine, son of the Russian émigré and Bordeaux legend Alexis, who set up Château d'Esclans near Frejus in Provence and proceeded with an ambition that appeared to outstrip possibility. At any rate, I arrived there a few years ago to taste the most expensive still pink in the world (Garrus, which now costs €90/£76) and its stablemates, ready to sneer. I left realising Lichine was on to something and that his Whispering Angel (now £13.95 a bottle) was, if not cheap, then affordable and also good. The marketing machine has been cranking, though. Among Lichine's current offering is something called Sacha Lichine Single Blend 2012. This demands decoding. It is not, as you might assume, made at Château d'Esclans, or even in Provence, but at two sites in the (cheaper) Languedoc. It is also a plain old Vin de France, meaning grapes might come from anywhere. And a "Single Blend" according to the label. Eh? Is this to imply that, like "Single Vineyard" and "Single Malt," this is in some way a higher quality level? Alain Riviere of Château d'Esclans explains: "Single blend is a contradiction and a play on words. It is a grenache-based wine (85 per cent). This is the minimum needed to say single varietal and blended with a bit of cinsault and syrah, the other 15 per cent. And they wonder why people get confused. As it happens it's not a bad wine; sophisticated, though lacking charm. It's not just southern French rosé that commands a premium. They have also been clever about the positioning of rosé in Champagne, where pink fizz routinely costs more than its white counterpart - quite a feat. The champenois explain this is because some rosé is made by adding a small percentage of still red wine to the white fizz. It's hard to ripen grapes to the level required to make this red wine, so it is almost as rare as a phoenix and the pink champagne that uses it is thus expensive. I am sure this is true. But Veuve Clicquot Rosé NV costs about £6 more than the yellow label NV on which the blend is based. That is quite a premium for a splash of red. Similarly, the gulf in price between Bollinger Rosé NV and its white counterpart, on which the blend is based, is often around £13, suggesting that the still red that makes up 5% of the blend might go for £120-£300 a bottle, retail. Actually the very red wine used by Bollinger, made from pinot noir grown on La Cote Aux Enfants in Ay is, in exceptional vintages, bottled separately, and it does not cost £120 but £42 - about the same as the white champagne. But in any case, I love pink Bollinger so much I do buy it as a treat, and don't resent the price. Perhaps it's not so strange that the humble pink plonk should have come so far. A friend points out that Domaines Ott was doing this a generation ago, "We used to call it the leg-opener. Not just for the voluptuous shape of the bottle but also what was in it. Ott is still superb. And still not cheap (their Coeur de Grain 2011 is £27.89 at thedrinkshop.com at the moment). But there is just something about a glass of pale pink wine when it is perfectly done.