Top 100 red wines of Palette

Discovering the wine region of Palette

Palette is a very small appellation in the Provence wine region, located in the far southeast of France. Created in 1948, the appellation covers red, white and rosé wines produced near Aix-en-Provence, a town just North of Marseille. Production is dominated by a single producer, Château Simone, which owns about half of the vineyards covered by the appellation. The rest of the production comes from Château Cremade, Château Henri Bonnaud, Château de Meyreuil and La Badiane.

The Palette title applies specifically to a small area of the hills east of Aix, in the communes of Meyreuil, Le Tholonet and Aix-en-Provence itself. In the past, the area of the appellation was about 23 hectares, but in 2005, INAO (the French government Body responsible for the country's appellation system) estimated the total area at 43 hectares. This increase reflects the significant modernization and expansion of the wine industry in southern France since the 1990s. Because of the local soils, Palette's wines are distinct from those of the much larger appellations (Côtes de Provence and Coteaux d'Aix-en-Provence) that effectively surround it.