Officially the best rosé in the world!

This wine, this very vintage, won the 2025 Decanter Magazine's World Wine Awards - Champion Rosé of the World! Independently judged from 1050 different rosés from all around the world. 

Château Cavalier is a tiny jewel in the crown of the Castel family’s wine estates, owned by France’s largest family-owned wine business, Castel Frères. The château is located in the foothills of the Massif des Maures, where 132 hectares of vineyard have been farmed sustainably and certified by Terra Vitis since 2012. The property benefits from a variety of soil types and exposures, featuring both rolling hills and flat terrain. Cool nighttime temperatures, morning mist, and particularly rich clay soils have enabled the vineyard to be recognised by the Côtes de Provence appellation as a Complementary Geographical Denomination called Notre Dame des Anges. This designation acknowledges the vineyard’s features as unique to the rest of the Provence appellation.

Cuvée Marafiance is crafted from classic Provence grape varieties including 30% Grenache, 25% Rolle (Vermentino), 20% Syrah, 16% Cinsault, 5% Cabernet Sauvignon and 4% Sémillon.

An opulent blend and complex nose of citrus, red fruits, florals and spice. The palate has structure, concentration and tension. Dry, but mouth-filling and satisfying. Aromatic, complex, length for days...

World Wine Awards judge's comments: "When we came to do the final tastings for our Best In Show selection this year, the Co-Chairs were offered an intriguing choice between two Provence rosé wines of very different styles. The success of Provence rosé has been built on pale pink wine of gentleness and tenderness: soft, creamy palates which both soothe but tease via an understated fruitiness – and which always invite the next sip. One of our Best In Show contenders was a wine of this sort. The other, though, was clearly a wine based on earlier picked and perhaps slightly higher-yielding fruit, with 2.5% less alcohol and correspondingly higher acidity – but which nonetheless contrived to suggest beguiling and understated charm thanks to the fact that its blend included both 30 per cent of Rolle (Vermentino) and 10 per cent of Sémillon in addition to Grenache, Syrah and Cabernet. This was that wine – and it prevailed. It’s pale, of course, with just a hint of salmon, and aromatically suggests quiet strawberry and redcurrant. On the palate it’s fresh, lively and lifted, acid-supported in this instance – but not so much as to call into question the gentle, moreish charm of its origins."