Rosé used to be a French word meaning “pink”; then it became North American slang for “cheap, bad wine”. For decades, Rosé has had a less than savory reputation among wine lovers. This is primarily because some North American wineries, in their infinite wisdom, decided to mass-produce and super-sweeten a pinkish wine – sometimes just a blend of reds and whites – and label it Rosé. About the only Rosé that was unaffected by the reputation disaster was Champagne. Champagne Rosé has always been highly regarded around the world. In fact, excellent Rosé’s have been made in the Old World for centuries. A fine Rosé is a crisp, dry, palate-pleasing wine that pairs well with virtually any food. The good news is, now the four letter word is no longer unutterable among wine enthusiasts. Vintners across North America are now producing world class Rosé’s to rival Europe’s best.
One of the most popular methods for making a true Rosé is the saignee (or bleeding) process, in which the juice in a vat is drained off into barrels for fermenting after the grape skins rise to the top of the vat, forming a “cap”. When making red wines, the cap is continually resubmerged. Basically, the longer the skins are left in the juice, the darker red the wine will be. The problem with saignee is that it often produces a wine of greater acidity and higher alcohol. In the south of France, wine makers use a straight vineyard-to-bottle method. Because of the popularity of the saignee, however, some wineries have adopted a variation on the method that involves harvesting some of the red grapes early to produce a Rosé with lower alcohol content and a brighter acidity.
So if you have been avoiding Rosé because of its past reputation for excessive sweetness and inferior palatability, it may be time to think pink and discover true Rosé.
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