The Second Glass

Not sure if Billy Joel was contemplating the weather when writing that, but after this week’s early spring heat wave it’s hard to think of drinking anything but white wine until Labor Day. But what about that under appreciated pink style of wine, that’s got the cold and crisp drinkability of a white wine – with a little more flavor and color?

Before I continue, I must admit I used to be a skeptic. Pink wines have been given a bad reputation by White Zinfandel and my personal bag in a box favorite from college, Sunset Blush. Although both were ultimately responsible for getting myself, and others, into the wine drinking world, both also gave me, and others, massive hangovers. So for the first few years of my slightly refined wine drinking, I stayed away from everything pink. But, in the face of desperation, at a BBQ on an oppressively hot summer day last year my options were red wine or ice, cold, pink, rosé. So I tried it, and quickly learned that when its not White Zinfandel or Sunset Blush, rosé wines are down-right-delicious.

So what makes rosé wines pink and not red or white? One major misconception is that rosé is a blend of red and white wine. Well this is untrue, unless it’s champagne or another sparkler. Still rosé wines are made from red wine grapes, but to understand why they are pink and not red, we need to understand a little about red winemaking. WARNING: Things are about to get a little technical, it may help to have a glass of wine in hand whilst reading. With red wine, the skins contain all the color compounds (anthrocyanins) as well as the compounds responsible for the body and structure of a wine (tannins). During the fermentation process, the skins rise to the top of the tank due to the bubbling of CO2, and are out of contact with the wine. There are a number of different ways of contacting the wine with this “cap” of skins (pump-over, punch down, rack and return), in order to extract color and increase body, and the frequency of doing this is one of the major stylistic decisions made by the winemaker. With a typical red wine the wine will stay on the skins any from 5 to over 30 days.

With rosé on the other hand, the juice is left on the skins for a short period of time with very minimal pump-overs or punchdowns – or none at all. After anywhere from 1 to 3 days, the juice is removed from the skins and fermented separately – using typical white wine fermentation techniques. Short contact with the skin extracts some color and tannin, resulting in pink wine we know as rosé. Before wines like White Zinfandel were mass produced, rosé wines were actually produced as a by-product of a higher end red wine. Since the skins contain all the color and flavor, if the ratio of skin to wine is increased, so will the flavor intensity. One French winemaking technique “bleeds” a portion of rosé wine off of a red fermentation to increase the flavor intensity of the remaining red ferment. Another Spanish technique removes ALL the rosé from one tank, in order to give a double dose of skins to a second tank that will produce a “black” wine.

Now that we’ve got the process covered – what do they taste like? Personally, I like to think of rosé wines as the red wine drinker’s summer wine. I find that most have three things in common, crisp acidity, aromas of strawberries, and downright drink-ability. But from there, it can really change drastically from one varietal to another. And so in lay the beauty of rosé wines…variety! From Grenache, to Pinot Noir, to Shiraz, to even Merlot, you can find a rosé for almost every red. And the rosé will often have the same varietal characteristics, but a little more subdued. I’ve had a shiraz rosé with hints of black pepper, merlot with hints of plum and dark fruits, and my personal favorite, a grenache rosé that is a strawberry bomb.

With what is sure to be a hot summer in The Hub, search out some rosé wines to cool off. One tip, the darker the color, the more intense the flavor and mouth feel will probably be. Best advice I can give is to search out your favorite red, be it a region, a varietal, or a particular winery, and see if you can find a rosé counterpart!