A
rosé (From French:
rosé, ‘pinkish’)
wineWine is an alcoholic beverage typically made of fermented grape juice. The natural chemical balance of grapes is such that they can ferment without the addition of sugars, acids, enzymes or other nutrients. Wine is produced by fermenting crushed grapes using various types of yeast. Yeast consumes...
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.
The first is used when rosé wine is the primary product. Red-skinned
grapeA grape is the non-climacteric fruit, botanically a true berry, that grows on the perennial and deciduous woody vines of the genus Vitis. Grapes can be eaten raw or used for making jam, juice, jelly, vinegar, wine, grape seed extracts, raisins, and grape seed oil...
s are crushed and the skins are allowed to remain in contact with the juice for a short period, typically two or three days.
A
rosé (From French:
rosé, ‘pinkish’)
wineWine is an alcoholic beverage typically made of fermented grape juice. The natural chemical balance of grapes is such that they can ferment without the addition of sugars, acids, enzymes or other nutrients. Wine is produced by fermenting crushed grapes using various types of yeast. Yeast consumes...
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.
Skin contact
The first is used when rosé wine is the primary product. Red-skinned
grapeA grape is the non-climacteric fruit, botanically a true berry, that grows on the perennial and deciduous woody vines of the genus Vitis. Grapes can be eaten raw or used for making jam, juice, jelly, vinegar, wine, grape seed extracts, raisins, and grape seed oil...
s are crushed and the skins are allowed to remain in contact with the juice for a short period, typically two or three days. The grapes are 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 strongly flavored
tanninTannins are astringent, bitter plant polyphenols that either bind and precipitate or shrink proteins. The astringency from the tannins is what causes the dry and puckery feeling in the mouth following the consumption of unripened fruit or red wine...
and other compounds, thereby leaving the taste more similar to a white wine. 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
tanninTannins are astringent, bitter plant polyphenols that either bind and precipitate or shrink proteins. The astringency from the tannins is what causes the dry and puckery feeling in the mouth following the consumption of unripened fruit or red wine...
and color to a red wine, some of the pink juice from the
mustMust is freshly pressed fruit juice that contains the skins, seeds, and stems of the fruit. The solid portion of the must is called pomace; it typically makes up 7%–23% of the total weight of the must. Making must is the first step in wine-making...
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
macerationMaceration is the winemaking process where the phenolic materials of the grape— tannins, coloring agents and flavor compounds— are leached from the grape skins, seeds and stems into the must. The term is usually used in reference to wine, but is sometimes used with other drinks, such as...
is concentrated. The pink juice that is removed can be fermented separately to produce rosé.
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.
Styles
Historically rosé was quite a delicate, dry wine, exemplified by Anjou rosé from the Loire. In fact the original
claretClaret is a name primarily used in British English for red wine from the Bordeaux region of France.-Usage:Claret derives from the French clairet, a now uncommon dark rosé and most common style of wine exported from Bordeaux until the 18th century...
was a pale ('clairet') wine from Bordeaux that would probably now be described as a rosé.
Weißherbst is a type of German rosé made from only one variety of grape.
After the Second World War, there was a fashion for medium-sweet rosés for mass-market consumption, the classic examples being
Mateus RoséMateus wine is a medium-sweet frizzante rosé produced in Portugal. The brand was created in 1942 and production began at the end of World War II. The wine was especially styled to appeal to the rapidly developing North American and northern European markets...
and the American "blush" wines of the 1970's (see below). The pendulum now seems to be swinging back towards a drier, 'bigger' style. These wines are made from Rhone grapes like Syrah,
GrenacheGrenache is one of the most widely planted red wine grape varieties in the world. It ripens late, so needs hot, dry conditions such as those found in Spain the south of France and California's San Joaquin Valley...
and Carignan in hotter regions such as Provence, the Languedoc and Australia. In France, rosé has now exceeded white wines in sales. 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.
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. In 1975 Sutter Home's "
White ZinfandelWhite Zinfandel, often abbreviated as White Zin, is an off-dry to sweet, pink-colored blush wine. White Zinfandel is made from the Zinfandel wine grape, which would otherwise produce a bold and spicy red wine. As such, it is not a grape variety but a method of processing Zinfandel grapes...
" wine experienced a
stuck fermentationA stuck fermentation occurs in brewing beer or winemaking when the yeast become dormant before the fermentation has completed. Unlike an "arrested fermentation" where the winemaker intentionally stops fermentation , a stuck fermentation is an unintentional and unwanted occurrence that can lead to...
, a problem in which the yeast dies off before all the sugar is turned to
alcoholIn chemistry, an alcohol is any organic compound in which a hydroxyl group is bound to a carbon atom of an alkyl or substituted alkyl group. An important group of acohols is formed by the simple acyclic alcohols, the general formula for which is C
nH
2n+1OH...
. Winemaker Bob Trinchero put it aside for two weeks, then upon tasting it he decided to sell this pinker, sweeter wine.
In 1976, wine writer Jerry D. Mead visited Mill Creek Vineyards in Sonoma County, California. Charlie Kreck had been one of the first to plant
Cabernet SauvignonCabernet Sauvignon is one of the world's most widely recognized red wine grape varieties. It is grown in nearly every major wine producing country among a diverse spectrum of climates from Canada's Okanagan Valley to Lebanon's Beqaa Valley...
vines in California, and offered Mead a wine made from Cabernet that was a pale pink and as yet unnamed. 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. Mead jokingly suggested the name "Cabernet Blush", then that evening phoned Kreck to say that he no longer thought the name a joke. In 1978 Kreck trademarked the word "Blush". The name caught on as a marketing name for the semi-sweet wines from producers such as Sutter Home and Beringer, although Mill Creek no longer produces any rosé wine.
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 sugarThe sweetness of a wine is defined by the level of residual sugar in the fermentation process.Residual sugar is the measure of the amount of sugars that remain unfermented in the finished wine.-History:...
; 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
Orange wineOrange wine is wine made from white wine grape varieties that have spent some maceration time in contact with the grape skins. Typically white wine production involves crushing the grapes and quickly moving the juice off the skins into the fermentation vessel...
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.
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