no, but seriously, what even is a rosé?
Rosé. Boy, do you guys love this stuff. 15 years ago, seeing a rosé on a restaurant list in Aotearoa was relatively rare. Fast forward to 2022 and for some of you guys, pink is all you drink!
It’s no wonder really. It’s a wine that evokes thoughts of lovely long days of Summer, sat on the deck, propped up in a big old bean bag, talking shitski with your mates. A lot of the time, that’s what wine is really about right? Setting the tone for good times. So, while it possibly doesn’t matter that much, what really makes a rosé a rosé?
Bluntly, it’s lack of skin contact.
Your beloved Rosé could be a merlot or a syrah or a pinot noir. It could be a grenache. It could be a malbec or it could be a blend. The only reason a rosé doesn’t develop into one of the above wines in its entirety, is becasue of less time spent getting skin contact.
So, a Rosé is made from red grapes that are picked and pressed just as if it was destined for a normal red wine. However, the winemaker doesn’t allow the juice to have skin contact for that long. In some cases that juice may only experience skin contact for a few hours whereas a red wine, as we know it, can sit in the tank fermenting away with the skins in the tank for days, sometimes weeks. The fermenting temperature is generally a lot warmer too.
The two key reasons that procedure helps make the Rosé wines we’ve all died for are: taste and colour. The grape skins are 100% responsible for making a red wine red (there are exceptions but they are rare and that’s another story for another day!). So, by only allowing a short time of skin contact, the juice won’t become dark red but rather a shade of blush that we’ve all gone mad for. When it comes to taste, much of the structure or body of a wine is found in the compounds that live in the skin. The less skin contact, the lighter the flavour of the wine is likely to be. Generally, we want our Rosé to be less structured and full bore. We want it to be crisp, refreshing and restorative and that’s what most winemakers are aiming for too.
An example and newly released Rosé is the Ata Rangi Martinborough Rosé 2022. Famous for their savoury, deliciously fruity and elegantly structured Pinot Noir wines, this Rosé, made by Helen Masters, is just how we like our rosé wines and a great example of the complexities that underpin a seemingly simple Rosé. This wine is made from a blend of Merlot (52%) Pinot Noir (37%) Syrah (5%) Pinot Gris (5% ) (you read that right. There is a white grape blended into all this redness) — and finally a splash of Tempranillo (1%).
These grapes were pressed and only allowed a few hours of skin contact. The wine is a beautiful blush soft orange-rose hue. The lightly coloured juice was then given the night to settle in tank before being popped into old French oak barrels before being bottled this past October.
So you see, a rosé can be a deeply thoughtful, thought-through wine that has been made with an understanding of how the flavour profiles of grape varieties talk to each other and a deep comprehension of the land and season the grapes have experienced and yet still deliver something that feels invitational and inclusive and well, not so serious. Ain’t that grand!
Helen’s Rosé promises notes of watermelon, sun-ripened strawberries, pomegranate, and pink grapefruit. If that doesn’t sound like a perfect Summer wine, then who knows what does!
we’re super grateful to our pals at antipodes water company. they supply us with the good water for our chats. antipodes is an artesian water that contains no chemicals, and when you’re pouring an organic wine that is gold. the mineral content also keeps the palate fresh so you can taste the wine the way the winemaker and nature intended you to. thanks antipodes, you’re the bomb. antipodes.co.nz
