Grapevine: Rose on the rise as seasons change

As warmer weather approaches, rosé will increasingly be the wine of choice for its versatility with food and equal appeal to white and red wine drinkers. Defining rosé wine can be a difficult task though.

Its production can resemble white wine making techniques or red wine making techniques or somewhere in the middle.

The only common ground for most professionals is the colour of the wine, although this is an increasingly murky area as light red wines continue to gain popularity and their colour can at times appear lighter than some rosé wines.

Nevertheless, colour is often the deciding factor when buying even though it can be a deceptive beast, particularly its use as short hand for the sweetness of a rosé.

While this may have been a useful heuristic at some point in the past, it really should be excluded from use these days as a dark-coloured rosé is as likely to be dry as it is to be sweet, and a light-coloured rosé could just as easily be sweeter than a darker-coloured example.

The grape variety and production method will more directly affect the colour of rosé, think of comparing a glass of Pinot Noir and Shiraz in terms of colour.

Pinot Noir is generally lighter in colour than Shiraz and this will carry over to comparing rosé wines made from these varieties, all else being equal. Equally, the more time that the juice spends in contact with skins, the darker then resulting wine will become.

Colour can be useful in estimating the body of the wine and the darker the colour, generally speaking, the fuller bodied the wine will be. This can usually be confirmed by having a quick look at the alcohol percentage. The lighter, crisp rosés that are modelled on those from Provence will tend to reach up to 12 per cent ABV, whilst fuller bodied examples will start reaching up around 13-14 per cent.

Amherst are a fantastic small grower based in the Pyrenees region of Central Victoria. Their 2018 rosé ($19) is produced entirely from Shiraz using the direct pressing method. The deep colour belies the style somewhat. It is by no means sweet but it does have a little more weight than most. The flavours are delicate and pretty, dominated by bright red berries, some subtle spice typical of the variety and region. The overall feel is crisp, dry and just filled out by the time spent on lees.

Rosé Winemaking Techniques

Direct Pressing
This method is essentially the use of white wine making techniques on red grapes. Grapes will arrive at the winery and immediately be pressed, which involves gently pressing the grapes to release the juice whilst avoiding breaking down the skins and pulp too much. As the juice is drained from the press, it will have some brief contact with the skins giving it some colour.

Saignee
This method is mainly a by-product of red wine production. The juice will remain in contact with the skins in a vat and after a period of a few hours to a few days some of the juice will be bled off from the vat and fermented. This method produces only small quantities of rosé given that most of the juice will remain in the vat to be produced as a red wine.

Skin contact
This method is similar to saignee, but the intent is to produce a rosé wine from all of the grapes used. The grapes will be crushed and left in contact with the stems for several hours, the result being a fuller-bodied wine than direct pressing and generally a deeper coloured wine.

In Provence the breakdown is roughly 40 per cent use Skin Contact, 10% use Saignee and 50% use Direct pressing.