Rosé
The Winemaking Process
A Rosé is a style of wine created from dark-skinned grapes of different varietals that bleeds some of the colors from the grape skins, but not enough to truly be a red wine. There are three recognized ways to produce Rosé; those ways are skin contact, saignée, and blending.
When Rosé wine is created with the skin contact method, dark-skinned grapes are crushed and the skins are added to the juice for two to four days, during which time, some of the color from the skins bleeds into the juice. The wine is then pressed, and the skins are discarded leaving only the liquid behind. The longer that the skins are with the juice, the deeper the color of the final wine. The color of Rosé ranges from light pink to a bright reddish orange color.
While creating a red wine, such as a Pinot Noir or Zinfandel, some winemakers want to create a wine with more structure, tannin, and color. To create such a red wine, some of the juice can be removed a few days after the crush to concentrate the remaining color and tannin. This process is known as the Saignée (from French bleeding) method. The juice that is removed has taken on a slight pink color as a result of the skin contact and is fermented separately to produce a Rosé.
The Wine
The flavor of Rosé depends greatly on the variety of grape that was used to create it and the amount of skin contact received by the juice. Rosé ranges from very dry to sweet on the palate with a flavor profile going from grapefruit to blackberry.
