Rosé: Is It Red Wine or Is It White Wine?
Rosé (pronounced as “rose-ay”) is a unique type of wine. At first glance, rosé appears to have the color of a typical red wine, but its hue is actually closer to pink and may even range from pale orange to nearly purple, depending on the type of grape wine variety used and the wine-making technique employed. In any case, with its reddish tinge, rosé is naturally and assuredly not a white wine.
On the other hand, in terms of taste, rosé is too light to be regarded as a red wine and its taste is actually closer to that of a white. In fact, many wine connoisseurs consider rosé to be more of a white wine than a red.
In the final analysis, experts seem to agree that rosé is neither a purely red wine nor a purely white wine. In many respects, rosé is in a class of its own.
Perhaps due to its confusing nature (Is it red? Is it white?), rosé is not a particular favorite of wine connoisseurs. However, it does have a huge following especially in North America during summer. rosé’s crisp and light qualities make for a refreshing option during those hot summer days and nights. This is one reason why rosé is sometimes called a summer wine.
Compared to genuine red and white wines, rosé is much simpler in nature even if it is produced from the same grapes as the reds and whites. Generally, rosé wines coming from Europe are dry while rosé wines coming from the United States are sweet. At Silkwood Wines, we produce both a sweet Rose wine and a dry Rose wine, so you can enjoy either or both, depending on your tastes.
The popularity of rosé has declined significantly in recent memory but it looks like it is now ready for a resurgence, no doubt bolstered by wine producers in key regions in France, Spain and Australia who have constantly churned out high quality rosé wine despite the dwindling patronage in recent years.
Historically, wine producers used the process of blending to create rosé wines. As its name suggests, blending involved mixing a bit of a red wine with a white wine. Wine makers believed that this process could result into an interesting array of wines that combined the crispness of many white wines with the hearty character of red wines. Unfortunately, some of the results were not very impressive and the blending practice soon fell out of vogue.
Today, the rosé making process of choice is bleeding. In this process, the wine maker typically uses the same red-skinned grapes that are used in making red wine. After these grapes are crushed, they are allowed to "bleed off" or to soak until the desired amount of color has been extracted from the skins. The skin is then extracted and fermentation follows, much like in the case of white wine. and remain in contact with the juice as , after a few hours
There are several reasons why wine producers prefer to use bleeding instead of blending. For one thing, the process allows them to make rosé wine from only one grape wine variety (red) rather than the two (red and white). Not only is this more convenient, it is also a significant marketing benefit, especially since the majority of North Americans and other wine lovers are inclined to purchase wine based on their variety rather then their region of origin and they can easily detect this information on the wine’s label.
