A collaboration between La Petite Maison and art-wine destination Château La Coste results in a rosé that carries the Riviera’s warmth and clarity from the vineyard to the table
At Château La Coste, where winemaking, architecture and art are given equal footing, a new rosé captures the estate’s rhythm. The blend of Grenache, Cinsault, Syrah and Cabernet Sauvignon is pale in colour and precise in structure, with notes of citrus peel and white stone fruit, and a saline finish that quietly gestures toward the coast.
The wine is made just north of Aix-en-Provence, where Château La Coste stretches across more than 600 acres of organically farmed vineyard, oak woodland and olive groves. The land itself has been cultivated for centuries – traces of Roman winemaking still linger beneath the soil – but its current identity was shaped from 2002 onwards, when Irish hotelier and collector Paddy McKillen acquired the estate. Known for restoring historic hotels in London like Claridge’s, The Connaught, The Berkeley and The Savoy, McKillen brought a similarly detail-led approach to Provence, inviting contemporary artists and architects to intervene in the landscape. The result is a site where agriculture and cultural production sit side by side.
Permanent installations by more than 40 artists are scattered across the estate. A steel Louise Bourgeois Spider crouches near the vines. A neon script by Tracey Emin flickers beside a dry stone bench. Richard Serra’s Aix carves a shallow corridor of steel into the hillside. Andy Goldsworthy’s Oak Room, constructed from woven branches, curls inward like a quiet refuge. Ai Weiwei’s Ruyi Path guides walkers through the forest on a line of reclaimed cobblestones. Tadao Ando’s concrete chapel rests beside a shallow pool. Buildings by Jean Nouvel, Renzo Piano, Richard Rogers and Kengo Kuma sit discreetly among rows of lavender and vine. Oscar Niemeyer’s final architectural work – a curved glass and concrete pavilion – was completed here in 2021.
Visitors arrive for the wine, but stay to walk the estate, to explore the rotating galleries, or to sit beneath a Ronan and Erwan Bouroullec trellis with a coffee or a glass in hand. The experience is slow by design, and the wine, in approach and execution, reflects that pace.
Grapes for the rosé are carefully selected. “We pick by parcel, depending on the grape and the ground,” explains vineyard manager Guillaume Vidal. “Each one is fermented separately to preserve character.” Fermentation takes place in stainless steel using indigenous yeast; the tanks are cooled to five or six degrees, and nitrogen is used throughout to prevent oxidation. “If the juice gets too warm, you extract too much colour too fast,” says cellar master Raymond Gimenez. “The cold gives you time – and keeps the rosé pale, but not simple.” Final blending is based not on formula, but on taste. “We never blend by numbers,” he adds. “We taste everything – Syrah, Grenache, Cabernet – and decide what feels right that year.”
The resulting wine was made in collaboration with La Petite Maison, the French Riviera-rooted restaurant group with ten global outposts including London and Dubai. Known for its Mediterranean cooking and signature lemon-and-tomato table motif, La Petite Maison brings a complementary sensibility – one of warmth, simplicity and balance – to the project. The label, drawn in soft lines, includes a sketch of the estate’s bastide, lavender in bloom, and that same citrus still life, nodding quietly to the restaurant’s tables.
The rosé is available in two formats: a 50cl bottle, suited to quieter lunches, and a magnum, designed for longer evenings. It is a wine intended to accompany, not dominate. Best served with dishes that speak the same dialect – burrata, grilled fish, torn peaches – and shaped, like everything at Château La Coste, by what the season brings.
Here, wine is one material among many – alongside glass, concrete, steel and stone. It is part of a larger composition in which each element has been considered. It may be new to the tables of La Petite Maison, but it’s been decades, even centuries, in the making.
The Château La Coste x La Petite Maison rosé is available globally at La Petite Maison restaurants in the UK, UAE and US.
