Rosé

For other uses, see Rose (disambiguation).

A rosé (From French: rosé, ‘pinkish’) wine has some of the color typical of a red wine, but only enough to turn it pink. The pink color can range from a pale orange to a vivid near-purple, depending on the grapes and wine making techniques.

Production

A glass of rosé wine. The color is deeper than most blush-style wines.

There are three major ways to produce rosé wine: skin contact, saignée and blending.

Skin contact

When rosé wine is the primary product, it's produced with the skin contact method. Black-skinned grapes are crushed and the skins are allowed to remain in contact with the juice for a short period, typically one to three days.^[1] The must is then pressed, and the skins are discarded rather than left in contact throughout fermentation (as with red wine making). The skins contain much of the astringent tannin and other compounds, thereby leaving the structure more similar to a white wine.^[2] The longer that the skins are left in contact with the juice, the more intense the color of the final wine.

Saignée

Rosé wine can be produced as a by-product of red wine fermentation using a technique known as Saignée, or bleeding the vats. When a winemaker desires to impart more tannin and color to a red wine, some of the pink juice from the must can be removed at an early stage. The red wine remaining in the vats is intensified as a result of the bleeding, because the volume of juice in the must is reduced, and the must involved in the maceration is concentrated. The pink juice that is removed can be fermented separately to produce rosé.^[3]

Blending

Blending, the simple mixing of red wine to a white to impart color, is uncommon. This method is discouraged in most wine growing regions except for Champagne. Even in Champagne, several high-end producers do not use this method but rather the saignée method.^[4]

Styles

Rose wine is made in a range of colours, from a pale orange to a vivid near-purple, depending on the grapes, additives and wine making techniques.

Historically rosé was quite a delicate, dry wine, exemplified by Anjou rosé from the Loire. In fact the original claret was a pale ('clairet') wine from Bordeaux that would probably now be described as a rosé.^[1] Weißherbst is a type of German rosé made from only one variety of grape.^[5]

After the Second World War, there was a fashion for medium-sweet rosés for mass-market consumption, the classic examples being Mateus Rosé and the American "blush" wines of the 1970s (see below). The pendulum now seems to be swinging back towards a drier, 'bigger' style. These wines are made from Rhone grapes like Syrah, Grenache and Carignan in hotter regions such as Provence, the Languedoc and Australia. In France, rosé has now exceeded white wines in sales.^[2] In the United States a record 2005 California crop has resulted in an increased production and proliferation of varietals used for rosés, as winemakers chose to make rosé rather than leave their reds unsold.^[2]

Blush wine

In the early 1970s, demand for white wine exceeded the availability of white wine grapes, so many California producers made "white" wine from red grapes, in a form of saignée production with minimal skin contact, the "whiter" the better.^[6] In 1975, Sutter Home's "White Zinfandel" wine experienced a stuck fermentation, a problem in which the yeast dies off before all the sugar is turned to alcohol.^[7] Winemaker Bob Trinchero put it aside for two weeks, then upon tasting it he decided to sell this pinker, sweeter wine.^[8]

In 1976, wine writer Jerry D. Mead visited Mill Creek Vineyards in Sonoma County, California.^[6] Charlie Kreck had been one of the first to plant Cabernet Sauvignon vines in California, and offered Mead a wine made from Cabernet that was a pale pink and as yet unnamed.^[6] Kreck would not call it "White Cabernet" as it was much darker in colour than red grape "white" wines of the time, yet it was not as dark as the rosés he had known.^[6] Mead jokingly suggested the name "Cabernet Blush", then that evening phoned Kreck to say that he no longer thought the name a joke.^[9] In 1978 Kreck trademarked the word "Blush".^[10] The name caught on as a marketing name for the semi-sweet wines from producers such as Sutter Home and Beringer. In 2010 Mill Creek produced a rosé wine for the first time in years.^[11]

The term "blush" is generally restricted to wines sold in North America, although it is sometimes used in Australia and by Italian Primitivo wines hoping to cash in on the recently discovered genetic links between Primitivo and Zinfandel. Although "blush" originally referred to a colour (pale pink), it now tends to indicate a relatively sweet pink wine, typically with 2.5% residual sugar;^[12] in North America dry pink wines are usually marketed as rosé but sometimes as blush. In Europe, almost all pink wines are referred to as rosé regardless of sugar levels, even semi-sweet ones from California.

Orange wine

Further information: Orange wine

Orange wine, also commonly known as amber wine, is wine made from white wine grape varieties that have spent some maceration time in contact with the grape skins. Orange wines get their name from the darker, slightly orange tinge that the white wines receive due to their contact with the coloring pigments of the grape skins. This winemaking style is essentially the opposite of rosé production which involves getting red wine grapes quickly off their skins, leaving the wine with a slightly pinkish hue.^[13] The tradition of amber wine production is kept alive especially in the Caucasian republic of Georgia. Common grape varieties used for amber wine are Mtsvane and Rkatsiteli.

See also

• Oeil de Perdrix—a style of pale rosé
• Vin gris—the French name for pale rosés

References

1. ^ ^{a b} Lichine, Alexis (1967). Alexis Lichine's Encyclopedia of Wines and Spirits. London: Cassell & Company Ltd.. 
2. ^ ^{a b c} Voss, Roger. Heimoff, Steve Rosés for Summer Sipping Wine Enthusiast Online, July 2007
3. ^ Lourens, Karen. "Focus on Rosé". Anchor Yeast. http://www.wynboer.co.za/recentarticles/200701rose.php3. 
4. ^ The Wine Doctor, Glossary: S. Retrieved October 21, 2008.
5. ^ e-wineplanet.com Germany
6. ^ ^{a b c d} Mead, Jerry D. (1996)Mill Creek Revisited Mead on Wine Vol. I No. 6
7. ^ Dunne, Mike (2005) Wines of yesteryear still kicking The Sacramento Bee 29 July 2005
8. ^ Murphy, Linda (2003) White Zinfandel, now 30, once ruled the U.S. wine world San Francisco Chronicle, 3 July 2003.
9. ^ Mead, Jerry D. (1996)Mill Creek Revisited Mead on Wine Vol. I No. 6; Mead says this story is also mentioned in Leon Adams' The Wines of America
10. ^ USPTO Trademark #73164928 "Blush"
11. ^ Mill Creek Vineyards Our Wines
12. ^ California Wine Institute. "California Rosé and Other Blanc de Noir Wines". http://www.wineinstitute.org/resources/winefactsheets/article94. 
13. ^ J. Bonne "Soaking white grapes in skins is orange crush" San Francisco Chronicle, October 11th 2009