The Provençal people are toasting their good fortune with crisp, chilled glasses of their local pale pink rosé. An army of ex-pats, too, attracted by Peter Mayle’s dream of living in a sun-kissed rural idyll overlooking the Med.

Even chic Parisians, gossiping in the cafés and bars of the Marais, Montparnasse and Saint Germain-des-Prés, are celebrating with their favourite summer wine. The flagship drink of a southern French region has, it is said, been saved from extinction.

Its saviour is its presumed executioner — the European Commission, which had decided to lift a ban on adding white wine to red to make something pink.

Cue furious protests from French rosé producers, pressure from a chastened French Government and this volte-face by Mariann Fischer Boel, the Commissioner of Agriculture and Rural Development: “It has become clear over recent weeks that a majority in our wine sector believe that ending the ban on blending could undermine the image of traditional rosé, and that’s why I am making this change.”

But what is the big deal? Many wine producers in the New World make their rosés by blending and it can taste pretty good — but it’s not the best way, the true way, to make it, according to the winemakers of Provence, who favour the traditional maceration method.

They allow the skins of red grapes to have enough contact with the juice, which they say gives structure, body and the delicate pale pink colour — quite an art and far more noble, they claim, than the cheating, cerise-coloured New World rosés with their in-your-face fruit.

But you can see why the authorities might have thought that this was a good idea (one, by the way, that is perfectly legal in the Champagne region). France has more than enough red wine and lots of white wine, but not enough rosé to keep up with demand.

Indeed, world consumption of rosé has risen by 22 per cent over the past ten years and sales in Britain continue to soar. Research by the International Wine and Spirit Record, commissioned by Vinexpo, predicts that consumption of rosé will rise by more than 47 per cent by 2012, from 150 million bottles in 2008 to 221 million bottles.

This is despite slowing growth of wine consumption overall in the UK, amid the recession. Wine-drinking grew more than 12 per cent in the five years from 2003 to 2007 and is forecast to continue growing over the next five years, but at a slower rate of just over under 6 per cent.

Consumption of rosé accounts for 9 per cent of all the wines that Britons drink. Furthermore, in a survey commissioned by the Wine and Spirit Trade Association (WSTA), the number of people who drink rosé has risen by more than 60 per cent in the past three years.

Women, in particular, have increased their rosé consumption, seeking out brands such as Barefoot, from E&J Gallo, the Californian group, which has reported more than 50 per cent growth in both volume and value last year.

But E&J Gallo’s Barefoot rosé is very different to the typical AOC Provence equivalent. For starters, the sweeter Californian wine is half the price, while the average dry, Provence rosé retails at £9.50 a bottle. The majority of wine consumed in the UK (80 per cent) and globally (70 per cent) is of bottles retailing at less than $5 (£3).

“They shouldn’t even call it rosé,” several Provençal producers chorused, spluttering, about the blended New World versions.

Sophie Sumeire Denante, a Côtes de Provence producer at Château Coussin in Sainte Victoire, is worried that consumers do not know the difference between blended rosé and traditionally produced rosé.

“People who don’t know the story about rosé will buy this pink wine at a low price and compare it to our rosé, which costs more, without realising why it is more expensive to produce,” she said. “They’ll just see the same colour and choose the cheaper wine and will be confused by the category.”

Displayed prominently on top of the counter in the tasting room at Château Sainte Marguerite, a Cru Classé in La Londe, was a petition entitled Couper n’est pas Rosé”. There have been nearly 40,000 signatures in support of the campaign against blending since it began.

Château Sainte Marguerite is delicious, but it sells in Majestic for £9.99 a bottle. Jean-Pierre Fayard, the owner, justifies his prices. “The cost of land is high here, our yields are pretty low and the machinery we use to achieve this level of quality is expensive. Plus we have vines dating back to 1936 and old vines don’t produce as much fruit.”

No one is happier about the ban remaining in place than the Conseil Interprofessionnel des Vins de Provence (CIVP), which represents 700 producers and 55 négociants — who assemble the produce of smaller growers and winemakers and sell the results under their own names — making it France’s fourth-largest wine-producing area, producing 160 million bottles, with rosé accounting for 78 per cent.

“If it had gone the other way, it would have been much harder to explain rosé to consumers, I think they would have been misled,” Géry Viziale, the body’s export managing director, said.

Not everybody agrees. “I’m not sure it would have been that much of a problem,” Marie Pascaud, of Château de Pamplonne, near Saint-Tropez, said. “You could argue that it would have been an opportunity to show the world what we do — what makes Provençal rosé stand out.”

The locals sipping in the sunshine yesterday in Marseilles and Arles and Fréjus know the answer already.

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