Join us on our travels....

Join us on our travels....

Monday 16 April 2007

"At last a man who takes his rosé seriously enough to write a delightful book about it. Long overdue and very welcome." Peter Mayle

"Great fun to read." Eric Asimov New York Times (Scroll to bottom for full review)


"Light bright and pleasurable," Scotland on Sunday


Gourmand Award 2006 - Extremely Pale Rosé, book of the year on French wine

Extremely Pale Ros
é

A chance conversation with a Provencal vigneron leads to the most unlikely of quests - a hunt to find France's palest rosé.

Extremely Pale Rose is a richly entertaining and informative account of the travels of Jamie, his wife Tanya, and their ebullient friend Peter Tate. Giving up their lives in London, they quickly discover an unfortunate truth - the French won't treat rosé or their quest seriously. Ros
é is seen as a poor cousin to red and white wine, drunk largely as an apertif or to wash away the taste of spicy food. And although for many Brits pale rose has come to epitomise the south of France, French wine connoisseurs view it as flavourless water fit only for tourists.

In bars boulangeries and boucheries from Bordeaux to Bandol, Jamie, Tanya and Peter are recommended diverse vineyards to visit and as they travel they encounter the beginnings of a rosé revolution - French attitudes to pale pink wine appear to be changing, but is it too little too late to help them succeed in their quest?

All admirers of Peter Mayle's A Year in Provence and Bon Appetit, and Carol Drinkwater's Olive Farm series will be absorbed by this book which is anything but a pale imitation.


La Vie en Ros
é - Published July 2007

Ivey is a younger Peter Mayle with a similar turn of phrase....like a glass of the pink stuff this book is appealing... and Ivey's main aim to avoid life in a suit...[is] a mission for which one has great sympathy.

The Daily Mail


When a Frenchmen offers to let a young English couple set up a rosé bar on the terrace of his restaurant in Aix en Provence, the lure of the south of France proves too much. Once again Jamie and Tanya give up their jobs in London and head south, dreaming of a summer serving icy glasses of pale pink wine in the leaf-dappled sunshine. And no-one is going to stop their irrepressible friend Peter from accompanying them.

Their French friends think they’re crazy – how will they ever make any money? For a start their customers will largely be men and rosé is seen as a woman’s drink. And bars make their profits by selling wine with meals – but rosé isn’t supposed to accompany food. Then there’s the Provencal mafia and their protection rackets to contend with. In fact every French person they consult agrees - a rosé bar might work in London, but certainly not in France.

But the idea proves irresistible and Jamie, Tanya and Peter arrive in Aix at the beginning of the summer. Weaving their way past market stalls laden with fruit they find their terrace and under an impossibly blue sky begin to chalk-up a selection of their favourite rosés, unaware that an adventure that will take them from Aix to Uzès and from Cannes to Juan Les Pins is about to begin.


Eric Asimov New York Times Review

But can you only drink rosé? Extremely pale rosé at that? It would never occur to me, but maybe that’s why I don’t have a book out, and Jamie Ivey does. “Extremely Pale Rosé’’ (St. Martin’s Press, $22.95) is the story of Ivey and his wife, Tanya, who quit their jobs in London and head off to France with their eccentric friend Peter in search of the palest rosé in the land.

Why rosé? Who knows. Why the palest possible rose? Well, the motivation is to win a bet, or, more accurately, not to lose said bet. But honestly, it really doesn’t matter. As with rosé, the ultimate fun wine, reasons and rationale are not important. What counts is atmosphere, wit and of course amusing French people, without whom Peter Mayle, the Iveys and countless other British writers would still be slaving away at their day jobs..

The Iveys don’t know much about wine, though you can’t help suspecting they know a little more than they’re letting on. The conceit of pale rosé is pretty artificial. I’ve had rosés of every possible shade, and have rarely noticed any correlation between quality, weight, substance and color.

And yet, regardless of whether you buy the premise of the book, it’s great fun to read, especially if you enjoy sticking you nose into all sorts of little-known corners of France. Best of all, the Iveys never get bogged down in wine pretension. How ever little they know, they understand the most important thing: rosé is meant to be fun. They can’t help but enjoy themselves, and so will readers, who I daresay will be seeking out pale rosés themselves to drink under the sun.