Rosé
Encyclopedia
A rosé is a type of wine
that 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.
.
s are crushed and the skins are allowed to remain in contact with the juice for a short period, typically one to three days. 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. The longer that the skins are left in contact with the juice, the more intense the color of the final wine.
). 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.
, where it is forbidden by law, except for Champagne. Even in Champagne, several high-end producers do not use this method but rather the saignée method.
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
, the current commercial trend of rosé wine market is oriented toward a light
(i.e not tannic, rather light-colored), happy
, summer
-related and young (less than a year) wine. The main region of production of rosé wine is Provence
but following the fashion for this kind of easy-selling wines, other wine-growing regions produced their own rosé to get their share of the market.
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.
Vin gris
is a French name for pale rosés made with pinot noir
.
In France, rosé has now exceeded white wines in sales and is unrelated with the degree of alcohol, so that this latter can be relatively high for a wine.
is a rosé wine produced in Switzerland
also made of Pinot noir
grapes.
" wine experienced a stuck fermentation
, a problem in which the yeast dies off before all the sugar is turned to alcohol
. 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 Sauvignon
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. In 2010 Mill Creek produced a rosé wine for the first time in years.
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
; 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.
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.
, also commonly known as amber wine, is a type of 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. 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
.
Wine
Wine is an alcoholic beverage, made of fermented fruit juice, usually from grapes. The natural chemical balance of grapes lets them ferment without the addition of sugars, acids, enzymes, or other nutrients. Grape wine is produced by fermenting crushed grapes using various types of yeast. Yeast...
that has some of the color
Wine color
The color of wine is one of the most easily recognizable characteristics of wines. Color is also an element in wine tasting since heavy wines generally have a deeper color. The accessory traditionally used to judge the wine color was the tastevin, a shallow cup allowing to see the color of the...
typical of a red wine, but only enough to turn it pink
Pink
Pink is a mixture of red and white. Commonly used for Valentine's Day and Easter, pink is sometimes referred to as "the color of love." The use of the word for the color known today as pink was first recorded in the late 17th century....
. The pink color can range from a pale orange to a vivid near-purple, depending on the grapes and wine making techniques.
Production techniques
There are three major ways to produce rosé wine: skin contact, saignée and blendingBlending (alcohol production)
Blending is a technique to produce wine or other alcoholic beverages such as gueuze consisting in mixing different brews.In the case of rosé wine production, it is one of the techniques used, consisting to mix together a white wine with some red wine....
.
Skin contact
When rosé wine is the primary product, it's produced with the skin contact method. Black-skinned grapeGrape
A grape is a non-climacteric fruit, specifically a berry, that grows on the perennial and deciduous woody vines of the genus Vitis. Grapes can be eaten raw or they can be used for making jam, juice, jelly, vinegar, wine, grape seed extracts, raisins, molasses and grape seed oil. Grapes are also...
s are crushed and the skins are allowed to remain in contact with the juice for a short period, typically one to three days. 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. 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 (from French bleedingBleeding
Bleeding, technically known as hemorrhaging or haemorrhaging is the loss of blood or blood escape from the circulatory system...
). When a winemaker desires to impart more tannin and color to a red wine, some of the pink juice from the must
Must
Must 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 winemaking...
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
Maceration (wine)
Maceration 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. Maceration is the process by which the red wine receives its red color, since 99% of all grape juice is...
is concentrated. The pink juice that is removed can be fermented separately to produce rosé.
Blending
In other pats of the world, blending, the simple mixing of red wine to a white to impart color, is uncommon. This method is discouraged in most wine growing regions, especially in FranceFrance
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
, where it is forbidden by law, except for Champagne. Even in Champagne, several high-end producers do not use this method but rather the saignée method.
Styles of wine made from red-skinned grapes
After the Second World War, there was a fashion for medium-sweet rosés for mass-market consumption, the classic examples being the Portuguese Mateus RoséMateus (wine brand)
Mateus is a brand of medium-sweet frizzante rosé wine 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 1970s (see below). The pendulum now seems to be swinging back towards a drier, 'bigger' style.
These wines are made from Rhone
Rhône
Rhone can refer to:* Rhone, one of the major rivers of Europe, running through Switzerland and France* Rhône Glacier, the source of the Rhone River and one of the primary contributors to Lake Geneva in the far eastern end of the canton of Valais in Switzerland...
grapes like Syrah, Grenache
Grenache
Grenache is one of the most widely planted red wine grape varieties in the world. It ripens late, so it needs hot, dry conditions such as those found in Spain, the south of France, and California's San Joaquin Valley. It is generally spicy, berry-flavored and soft on the palate with a relatively...
and Carignan in hotter regions such as Provence
Provence
Provence ; Provençal: Provença in classical norm or Prouvènço in Mistralian norm) is a region of south eastern France on the Mediterranean adjacent to Italy. It is part of the administrative région of Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur...
, the Languedoc
Languedoc
Languedoc is a former province of France, now continued in the modern-day régions of Languedoc-Roussillon and Midi-Pyrénées in the south of France, and whose capital city was Toulouse, now in Midi-Pyrénées. It had an area of approximately 42,700 km² .-Geographical Extent:The traditional...
and Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
.
French market
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
, the current commercial trend of rosé wine market is oriented toward a light
Lightness
Lightness is a philosophical concept most closely associated with continental philosophy and existentialism, which is used in ontology. The term "lightness" varies in usage but is differentiated from physical weight, such as "the lightness of balsa wood"...
(i.e not tannic, rather light-colored), happy
Happiness
Happiness is a mental state of well-being characterized by positive emotions ranging from contentment to intense joy. A variety of biological, psychological, religious, and philosophical approaches have striven to define happiness and identify its sources....
, summer
Summer
Summer is the warmest of the four temperate seasons, between spring and autumn. At the summer solstice, the days are longest and the nights are shortest, with day-length decreasing as the season progresses after the solstice...
-related and young (less than a year) wine. The main region of production of rosé wine is Provence
Provence
Provence ; Provençal: Provença in classical norm or Prouvènço in Mistralian norm) is a region of south eastern France on the Mediterranean adjacent to Italy. It is part of the administrative région of Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur...
but following the fashion for this kind of easy-selling wines, other wine-growing regions produced their own rosé to get their share of the market.
Historically rosé was quite a delicate, dry wine, exemplified by Anjou rosé from the Loire. In fact the original claret
Claret
Claret 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 the most common wine exported from Bordeaux until the 18th century...
was a pale ('clairet
Clairet
Clairet is a wine that is dark pink in style, and may be described as a full bodied and deep coloured type of rosé. It is considered a specialty of the Bordeaux region and is thought to have originated in Quinsac in Premieres Côtes de Bordeaux...
') wine from Bordeaux that would probably now be described as a rosé.
Vin gris
Vin gris
Vin gris is white wine made from red grapes, in particular pinot noir. Pinot noir is a black grape, but can also be used to make rosé, blush wine, or white wine. When the grapes are brought to the winery and crushed, the juice is run off and removed from contact with the skin, leaving the colour...
is a French name for pale rosés made with pinot noir
Pinot Noir
Pinot noir is a black wine grape variety of the species Vitis vinifera. The name may also refer to wines created predominantly from Pinot noir grapes...
.
In France, rosé has now exceeded white wines in sales and is unrelated with the degree of alcohol, so that this latter can be relatively high for a wine.
Swiss market
Oeil de PerdrixOeil de Perdrix
Oeil de Perdrix is a rosé wine produced in Switzerland. The history of the wine style dates back to the Middle Ages in the Champagne region of France and from there spread to the Canton of Neuchâtel in Switzerland where it would become a popular dry rosé made from Pinot noir...
is a rosé wine produced in Switzerland
Switzerland
Switzerland name of one of the Swiss cantons. ; ; ; or ), in its full name the Swiss Confederation , is a federal republic consisting of 26 cantons, with Bern as the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in Western Europe,Or Central Europe depending on the definition....
also made of Pinot noir
Pinot Noir
Pinot noir is a black wine grape variety of the species Vitis vinifera. The name may also refer to wines created predominantly from Pinot noir grapes...
grapes.
German market
Weißherbst is a type of German rosé made from only one variety of grape (Rotling).American market
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
White 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 fermentation
Stuck fermentation
A 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 alcohol
Alcohol
In chemistry, an alcohol is an organic compound in which the hydroxy functional group is bound to a carbon atom. In particular, this carbon center should be saturated, having single bonds to three other atoms....
. 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 Sauvignon
Cabernet Sauvignon
Cabernet 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. In 2010 Mill Creek produced a rosé wine for the first time in years.
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
Sweetness of wine
The subjective sweetness of a wine is determined by the interaction of several factors, including the amount of sugar in the wine to be sure, but also the relative levels of alcohol, acids, and tannins. Briefly: sugars and alcohol enhance a wine's sweetness; acids and bitter tannins counteract it...
; 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.
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.
Styles of wine made from white-skinned grapes (Orange wine)
An orange wineOrange wine
Orange 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...
, also commonly known as amber wine, is a type of 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. The tradition of amber wine production is kept alive especially in the Caucasian republic of Georgia
Georgia (country)
Georgia is a sovereign state in the Caucasus region of Eurasia. Located at the crossroads of Western Asia and Eastern Europe, it is bounded to the west by the Black Sea, to the north by Russia, to the southwest by Turkey, to the south by Armenia, and to the southeast by Azerbaijan. The capital of...
. Common grape varieties used for amber wine are Mtsvane
Mtsvane
Mtsvane or Mtsvane Kakhuri is a grape variety used to make Georgian wines. It is used to make white wine. It is often blended with Rkatsiteli to which it adds a fruity, aromatic balance...
and Rkatsiteli
Rkatsiteli
Rkatsiteli is a kind of grape used to produce white wine.-History:This ancient vinifera originates in Georgia and is one of the oldest grape varieties...
.