Rosé, but who are you?

when asked how to make rosé wine, the common response is: " It's easy, just mix red and white wine! "It's actually a bit more complex than that! While the practice is quite common in southern hemisphere vineyards such as South Africa and Australia, it is prohibited in Europe. at the end of the 2000s, a few lobbyists wanted to import it to the Old Continent, but faced with an outcry from a large part of the wine sector, the European Commission finally gave the project's promoters the cold shoulder.so, if rosé isn't a " cocktail " of red and white wine, how is it "made"? There are two winemaking methods, one with short maceration, the other without.

With maceration...

The first is similar to the vinification of red wines. Black grape varieties (Gamay, Syrah, Grenache, Mourvèdre, Cinsault, Cabernet Sauvignon, etc.) are harvested and poured into a vat, where they come into contact with the grape solids, which contain polyphenols (tannins, pigments, anthocyanins, etc.), giving the juice color, structure and aroma. If the winemaker pushes this extraction too far, the wine "turns" red.

The idea is therefore to interrupt the maceration phase well before this "extreme", so as to obtain a rosé wine with the desired character and color. Choosing exactly the right moment requires experience and dexterity: contrary to what one might think given its recreational image, rosé is not an easy wine to make. The harvest is decanted, pressed and the juice fermented. Some of these maceration rosés are also known as "saignée" rosés, when the grapes are put into vats to produce red wine, and some of the juice is released during vatting to make rosé.this is done by "saignée", i.e. racking, which consists of draining part of the juice from the bottom of the vat, while the rest continues to macerate to produce a red wine.

... or without maceration

The other rosé-making technique is called "direct pressing", and is inspired by the vinification of white wines, except that these rosés are made from black grape varieties. No maceration prior to pressing.as in the case of white wines, the harvest is brought to the winery - possibly de-stemmed to avoid any vegetal tastes.vely de-stemmed to avoid vegetal, herbaceous tastes and too much astringency - is immediately sent to the press.

Without maceration, contact between juice and grape solids is rather timid and limited in time. As a result, color and tannin development are more discreet than with maceration rosés. As you can see, in general, maceration rosés are quite colorful, vinous and well-structured, whereas direct-pressing roséss from direct pressing are lighter in color, less "temperamental" and more delicate in structure.

The Champagne exception

"So it's true, you can't make rosé by mixing red and white? "repeat our philistines... Well, they're not entirely wrong to insist, because, in addition to South African and Australian wines, there is a French exception that allows this technique. And what an exception it is: the Champagne vineyards! A few local winemakers make rosé champagne known as "de macération" or "de saignée", via a short maceration of the juice with the skins of red grapes (pinot noir or pinot meunier). This requires a great deal of know-how. Most Champagne producers bottle "assemblage" rosé champagnes: in other words, they blend the basic white wines (still without bubbles) with a small proportion of red Champagne (from Bouzy, for example), between 5% and 20%, which is enough to bring out the color.

To sum up and caricature a little, rosé champagnes based mainly on Chardonnay are the finest, and those based on a dominant Pinot Noir and/or Pinot Meunier are a little more powerful. In any case, they present an interesting variety.

The palette is even richer when you zoom out and consider all the rosés of France: from the light rosés of Provence to the joyful rosés of the Loire Valley, not forgetting the cerdons of Bugey, the vigorous rosés of Irouléguy or, of course, the delicate, aromatic cuvées of Tavel.aromatic cuvées of Tavel, rosé is to be conjugated in the plural of a diversity of tastes, hues and intensities, inherited in particular from its two main winemaking methods.