Rosé wines

It seems like with the passing of May, the cooler wet weather is finally behind us and the warmth of the coming months has finally arrived. With that shift, a change in drinking habits may occur. It has for me. From the lighter fresh reds that helped transition from winter to spring, now comes a thirst for rose. A desire that lurks throughout the year but grows stronger as the warmer weather settles in.

Rose wine is made from grapes that are typically used to produce red wine. In order to get colour in a red wine, the grapes are picked and crushed and during the primary alcoholic fermentation, they are soaked and steeped, or “macerated” in wine jargon, in the juice. The temperature and durations applied to the process variably confer different desired affects. Too much heat during fermentation may provide more colour to the wine, but at the expense of the delicate primary fruit aromas.

During this stage of winemaking the skins also offer up their aromatics and tannin, the drying feeling you get in your mouth after a sip of some red wines.

This process usually takes around two weeks, concluding once all the sugars of the grapes have been converted into alcohol and the skins have given the winemaker the properties they want. Then, the resulting wine is pressed off the skins and the skins are discarded.

However, for rose wines, the wine is in contact with the skins for a much shorter time. Maybe  a few days, or maybe even a few hours, depending on the grape being used.

But the choice for a winemaker to produce a higher quality rose wine usually starts in the vineyard where grapes might be picked earlier to retain some acidity and keep the alcohol content lower. Lower quality rose wines are usually an afterthought and full of sugar to help balance the underripe grapes. These styles of wines give rose wines a bad name. Ideally, rose wines are light and delicate with a touch of tannin and brimming with fresh fruit flavours.

There are roses made all over the world from many different grapes but the place where they are most common is in Provence in the south of France. Here, grapes such as grenache, syrah and mourvèdre are most commonly used.

Generally speaking, rose wines are made to be fun and shared in the sun. They often lack the complexity that would put them into higher quality categories and as a result are usually priced well enough to bring a bottle or two to a summer gathering.

Here in the county, the signature red grape, pinot noir, is hard enough to grow and can be made into high quality red wines that could command a loftier price, so there are not many made from county grown grapes.

No matter where you get your rose wines from, the weather is ripe to start exploring them now.