Rise of the Rose.

As the temperatures start to rise and the sun begins to shine I notice how more and more customers opt for a bottle of the pink stuff. I'm sure you'll be aware that over the last few years rose wine is fast gaining ground in the popularity stakes and it now sits proudly between the Chablis & the Sauvignon Blancs on many a shop shelf as well as finding its way onto the swankiest of restaurant lists.

If you're a rose fan (even if you won't admit it) here's the low-down on what's what….

Changing styles
We had the 'blush' phenomenon of the early 1970s when North American producers made very pale pink wines from dark skinned grapes which evolved into the semi sweet 'blush' wines that were so popular. These along with wines such as Mateus Rose created the image of rose as a semi sweet, rather sickly tipple. However nowadays we're witnessing the pendulum swinging away from these styles back to the more interesting, dry and fuller bodied wines.

How it's made…
There are three methods for making rose wine, the most common is skin contact. Red grapes are crushed & the skins left in contact with the juice for a short period (usually a couple of days), the longer the skin contact time the deeper the colour of the end wine. This short skin contact means the resulting wines have very light, if any, tannins, they're rarely aged in oak and thus this method tends to produce a soft, approachable style of wine. The second method known as Saignée, or bleeding, is used when the winemaker desires to impart more tannin and colour to a red wine. Some of the pink juice is removed from the must at an early stage, in a process known as bleeding the vats. This juice is then fermented separately, producing the rosé as a by-product of the red wine, which 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 third option is to blend a small amount of finished red wine with a finished white. Champagne is one of the few appellations where the blending method of rose wine making is allowed.