In the Pink wine
Rosé
Rosé champagne may be known as a pink version of champagne but a good one needs to be much more than just that. WORD S b y Sara Underdown
making. Irrespectively, all rosés need particularly ripe black grapes, making them more costly to produce than most other wines from the region. Ripe black berries, especially those from older vines, are more intense and concentrated in flavour and colour, requiring good soil and growing Styles of rosé – like their colours – vary conditions to reach their full potential. by the depth and breadth of their comThey impart the necessary fruit and strucposites. They can be full-bodied or intural profile required for elaborating rosé credibly light, fruit-forward or savoury, styles but, more than this, because yeast vinous or lithe, ‘leaches’ colour with tannins or It’s important to have strongly from the wine without, sweet or during fermentadry. However, rosés coloured black fruit to retain tion, it’s importare most often recolour profile. ant to have strongly freshing and lively coloured black fruit with strawberry to retain colour profile. and raspberry aromas featuring a slightly Rosé, alluringly pretty to the eye with its spectrum of pink, salmon and amber hues, should taste different to other types of champagne, especially classically blended ones on which they are sometimes based.
full, yet crisp, mouthfeel. With their summery appeal, most are produced to be consumed young although some can be made for long-ageing potential developing complex, full-bodied and powerful profiles over time. Distinctions can be enhanced or reduced in different ways, depending on wine-
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The power and intensity of black fruit was the basis for much of Champagne’s fame in the 18th and 19th Centuries, during which time the pinot noir kingdoms of Aÿ and Bouzy were celebrated for their still red wines. Producers to this day are still proud to declare if their rosés comprise red wine from these
