Dorianne and I are happily ensconced in a nice AirBnB.com apartment in a beautiful village called Villanueve lès Avignon, just across the Rhône River from Avignon. We will be here for six weeks, so five to go. It has been pretty hot here, as is normally the case this time of year (think Southern California with a bit more humidity), so we look for refreshing meals and refreshing wines, which has, for the most part meant rosé wines. Of course we have had some whites and a couple of local reds (they chill them here in summer) from the Luberon, Languedoc-Roussillon  and Province, but rosé has been our go-to wine 3/4 of the time. They have been good with lunch, with our late afternoon wine-cheese-and-olive snack (all local, of course), and with our dinners.

We have paid from 4 euros to 17 euros per bottle, and found very little difference in the quality of the wines. Some are a bit sweeter than others, some need to be really cold to drink well, but the degree of separation for most of these wines is minimal.

One rosé from Corsica’s (LINK) Vin de Course AOC had Nielluccio, Sciacarello and Grenache as its varietals (not pictured). The wine was a delight and cost 4.50€, or about $4.80 for a bottle.

But mostly, we are drinking the wines of the regions that abut Avignon, which include Luberon, Languedoc-Roussillon, Chateauneuf du Pape, and Provence. I am not sure which, if any of these wines are available in the U.S. or other countries. All I can say is, this summer if you can get your hands on rosés from Southeastern France, do it. We will be touring some local wineries and regions over the next few weeks, so look for more posts about this magical place.