How rosé wine is made
If you have read some of the earlier posts in this series, you will already know that rosé wine is made using red grapes. The grape juice has had a short period of skin contact. This allows some of the pigment contained in the grapes to ‘stain’ the wine, turning it pink. In this post we explore three methods which are used to achieve that pink colour.
Growing and Harvesting the grapes
Rosé wine requires red (blue / black) grapes, which can come from a number of different varieties. It is fair to say that not all red varieties are equal in terms of their suitability for making rosé wine. Common varieties used include Pinot Noir, Syrah, Grenache, Cinsault and Mourvèdre. The grapes grown for rosé wines are essentially treated very similarly to those grown to make red wines. It is very common for winemakers to produce both red and rosé wines from the same varieties.
Similar to both white and red wines, grapes can be either hand or machine harvested, after which they will be sorted to remove undesirable materials.
Direct Pressing
Once grapes are ready to be processed, the first option available to a winemaker is to do a direct pressing of the grapes at this stage. The process of pressing is similar to that used for white wines, but does allow a small amount of pigment to mix with the juice. This leaves a very light coloured rosé juice which can then be processed much the same as a white wine. The skill here is in extracting colour, but not extracting too much tannin.
This is to prevent the wine from becoming too astringent. Rosé wine made this way is likely to be very light in style with flavours closer to white wine. It will likely have hints of red fruits which could easily be overwhelmed by the tannins.
Short Maceration
We learnt in earlier posts that maceration is the process of leaving juice in contact with the skins of the grapes. This process allows colour, tannins and flavours contained within the skin to be infused into the wine. This process is not instant, and the amount of time spent macerating determines the extent to which the wine takes on those properties. A short period of maceration extracts smaller amounts of colour, flavour and tannin. This results in a wine which is not fully red in colour, but rosé.
Sometimes the maceration can be extremely short (2 hours), or it can be longer (up to 24 hours). The period of maceration will result in wines with varying depth of colour, flavour and tannin. The grape variety likely plays a role here as well. Some varieties will be thinner skinned, have darker berries (grapes) or higher concentrations of tannin. In some cases the maceration might continue into the beginning of the fermentation. In either case, once maceration is complete the juice is drained off and treated in a similar way as white wine for the remainder of its processing journey.
A variation on the short maceration is what is known as the Saignée method. This method is essentially taking a waste product from red wine making and turning it into a pink wine. Sometimes when making a red wine, to increase the concentration and amount of skin contact it is desirable to reduce the ratio of juice to skins. In this scenario, juice will be drained off the skins of the red grapes. The remaining liquid will take on a higher concentration of colour, flavours and tannins.
The question becomes, what to do with the liquid which has been drained off? Well, rather than wasting it, the liquid can be used to create a rosé wine. Typically, these wines are deeper in colour and have more structure. They lend themselves better towards consumption with food.
Blending
In Europe and throughout the world, there tends to be a very negative attitude towards blending red and white wines to create a rosé. Despite the fact that small quantities of white wine can be added to a red to balance its flavours, the opposite is apparently a no-go. There are places in the world that do this. Notably in the new world. And it would be unfair to say that there are no good wines made this way. In fact, the notable exception to this rule is in making sparkling wine, particularly champagne. In champagne, normal rules do not apply, and red wine is sometimes blended with white to create a rosé!
So those are the three main methods of producing a rosé wine. Next time you reach for a glass of something pink, maybe you can hazard a guess by the depth of its colour which method was used to create it. In the meantime, keep exploring this beautiful planet we live on, one glass at a time!