Sweet Rose Wine
Sweet rosé wine (pronounced “rose-ay”) looks like a red wine (pink actually) but, surprisingly, is not considered to be one. In fact, most rosé wines are regarded as more white than red. Its unique qualities have made rosé wine a source of much bewilderment for countless years. Experts now seem to agree that it defies classification and consider it to be neither a purely red wine or a purely white wine.
One thing that is certain about Sweet rosé wine (and Dry rosé wine, for that matter) is that it makes for an ideal thirst quencher during summer, especially with its light and fruity flavor.
France is known to be the leading producer of Sweet rosé wine, especially the villages of Provence and Rhone in the southern region. Aside from France, other major Sweet rosé wine producers are Spain, Australia, South Africa, and the United States.
Generally, rosé wines that come from Europe are dry, while rosé wines that come from the United States are sweet.
Sweet rosé wine is produced by an interesting method, either through bleeding or blending. Previously, wine manufacturers favored the blending method which simply meant that a small quantity of a red wine was mixed with a white wine in an effort to achieve the best of both worlds – the crispness of white wines and the hearty character of red wines – but this method has since been discredited.
Today, the method of choice for producing Sweet rosé wine is the bleeding method. Wine makers harvest red grapes (yes, the same ones used for red wine) and crush the entire berry to a pulp. The concoction is allowed to steep at a cool location and, after a few hours, some juice is separated from the grape skin and is allowed “to bleed” for a few hours in a separate container. This process is called “saignee” which is the literal French translation for “to bleed.” The juice that has been separated, usually the color of pink wine, will be fermented. (Interestingly, the juice that was left behind with the grape skin will be used in the production of Dry rosé wine, which is more concentrated and deeply colored).
The same process applies in the production of white zinfandel. The only difference is that wine producers stop the fermentation process and chill the tank before all of the alcohol is converted into sugar. There is about a two percent residual alcohol content.
One of the most popular Sweet rosé wines that originated in California is White Zinfandel, which became the most popular premium wine in 1981 with 25,000 cases sold. Within 10 years, the number of White Zinfandel sales skyrocketed to three million sales in 1990. After another 10 years, total White Zinfandel sales reached the 4.5 million cases sold mark.
Wine producers prefer the bleeding method because it not only allows manufacturers to use only one grape wine variety (red) instead of two (red and wine), but it also has some labeling advantages 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.
