Out This Week: Brangelina's 2013 Rosé

The newest Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie sequel is being described as powerful and elegant, but the rave reviews aren't for a film...they're for the celebrity couple's second vintage of rosé wine, which is being released this week.

The grapes are grown and the wine is produced at the Jolie-Pitt's 1200-acre, 17th-century Provencal estate Château Miraval, located in the village of Correns, just north of Brignoles, in the Var. And if the new rosé is anything like it's predecessor, it'll be a huge hit with critics and consumers alike. 

The 2012 vintage sold out all 6,000 bottles five hours after release last March. And Wine Spectator reported that a single autographed barrel (about 300 bottles) fetched more than $13,000 (about double its market value) at a charity auction. 

Roughly 200,000 bottles of the 2013 will be sold for about 15€ ($20) each. 

While the Miraval website says: "Sorry, booking exclusive Miraval first bottles of Rosé 2013 is now closed. Communicate your email address, we will keep you informed of upcoming availability," my contacts at the winery tell me it will be in shops in France and the U.S. starting in early March. Wine-searcher.com shows it on sale through many international retailers here.

Decanter has given the 2013 Miraval 91 points, describing it as "charmingly pretty in colour" with "a delicate structure that deepens through the palate."  The magazine goes on to say the wine has “a sense of power alongside the elegance, a structure and a fresh acidity that gives the wine persistency, with a grip of minerality that gives a delicious mouthwatering finish.” 

The 2012 vintage, Pitt and Jolie's first, was a serious rosé ranked No. 84 in Wine Spectator’s list of the top 100 wines of 2013...the only rosé to make the list.  (Press releases immediately started touting it as ''the best rosé in the world.'') Wine Spectator managing editor Kim Marcus described the 90-point wine as "Refined and elegant, offering pure and concentrated flavors of dried red berry, tangerine and melon. The focused finish features flint and spice notes, with a hint of cream." 

To make their wines, the Jolie-Pitts joined forces with the Perrin family of the renowned Châteauneuf-du-Pape estate Château de Beaucastel and the Central Coast property Tablas Creek Vineyard.  At the time of the release of the 2012, Marc Perrin described the Miraval domaine:  “This is a magical place that we traverse from one end to the other to discover exceptional plots. The valley, property of the château, offers an unmatched eco-system and gives the wines a unique style in terms of freshness and elegance.” Perrin says he worked closely with Pitt and Jolie to develop the wine. 

The rosé project has gone so well, Decanter's Jane Anson says, that the movie star duo has signed up the Perrins to make a red wine “in the style of Italy’s Super Tuscans.” But first they have to plant the vines and before that, according to Perrin, they’ll need to “experiment with different grape varieties, from Syrah and Mourvèdre to Cabernet Franc and others.”

If you get your hands on the 2013 Miraval and want to share your source, please leave a comment below! And I'll leave you with this fun factoid: One rosé wine previously made at Miraval (before the Jolie-Pitts took over) was called Pink Floyd, because the iconic British band recorded part of The Wall at the estate in 1979.