2020 LVE Rose Legend Vineyard Exclusive Languedoc 750 ml

John Legend is known for his perfectionism, no matter what field he’s working in. One of a tiny handful of people who’ve won the coveted EGOT quartet (Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, Tony), he’s now making waves in the wine world—and we love his LVE rosé for the same smooth, polished perfection that his music displays.

Bright, vibrant, and packed with energetic citrus and red-berry fruit, it has classic southern French charm to spare, with an ease that demands one sip after another. This is not just another celebrity wine, though: John Legend is working with none other than Jean-Charles Boisset, the quality-obsessed Burgundian who’s one of the most important figures in French wine.

The results are outrageously delicious and captured our hearts at first taste. The Legend Vineyard Exclusive rosé pours a beautiful copper-accented pale pink, and we were transported to the Mediterranean coast as soon as we smelled the wine. It’s bursting with aromas of grapefruit zest, lemon blossoms, jasmine and delicate candied strawberries, which preview a fantastically stimulating palate. Once the wine hits your tongue, you’re treated to a wave of delicate pie cherry, blood orange, and peach skin flavors, all wrapped up in a salty minerality that demands another sip.

John Legend told Wine Spectator in an interview that “being in music for this long has taught me the benefits of working with really talented people”—and few people are more talented than Jean-Charles Boisset. A towering figure in Burgundy, he’s turned his family’s winery into a quality powerhouse, with 17 scores over 95 points in 2016 and '17 alone. That’s through an obsession with quality, which certainly comes through in this bottle.

The LVE rosé is sourced from three different vineyards in the Languedoc, all with different soils—sandstone, limestone, and clay—which provide structure, vibrancy, and fruit, respectively. Rather than ferment them together, grapes from each vineyard are vinified according to the plot they come from. It’s a mind-boggling number of wines to manage, all so that the Legend and Boisset have a full range of blending options—but that’s what got Jean-Charles to the top of Burgundy.

In that Wine Spectator interview, Legend compared blending a wine to producing and mixing a record, going over combinations again and again until “you get it exactly where you think it’s perfect, and you feel like it’s opened up and all your senses are thrilled by it.” It’s pretty clear that he nailed the mix on this one—we were definitely thrilled, as well.