Rose follow up - Making the Pink

How do you make it pink?

Wine grapes usually fall into two categories black or white, and as you may gather red wines come from black skinned grapes; white skinned grapes make white wine. The colour in red wine comes from the juice having contact with the skins during fermentation. Almost all the pigmentation in grapes is in the skin. White wines usually don't have any skin contact during fermentation, but if they do they will make an Orange wine, but that will be for another post. You can make white wines from black skinned grapes if you don't allow any skin contact after crushing; this is because most grapes have colourless juices. Pinot Noir can make a nice white wine like the nice example called "Pinot Noir Blanc" from the Niche Wine Company in BC.

Rosé may of had a bad rap before due to all the cougar juice (off-dry to sweet blush wine) on the market. French rosés are almost always dry, and there are some great examples of dry rosés coming out of the Okanagan. Great patio wine and food friendly.


There are 4 ways to make Rosé wine:

DIRECT PRESSING:

The red grapes are crushed and pressed as if you were making a white wine. With minimal time having the juice in contact with the skins. This makes the palest coloured rosés due to minimal skin contact.

DRAWING OFF:

Here the red grapes are crushed and pressed as if making a red wine with the juice staying in contact with the skins. The juice is left on the skins for 6 - 48 hours, or longer like the 3.5 day wine from Baillie Grohman we had at the last tasting. The juice is then drawn off of the skins, and the longer the skin contact the darker the colour of the wine. The fermentation will continue at a cooler temperature once the desired colour/richness has been reached.

BLEEDING (Saignee)

This is the same process as Drawing off except only a portion of the juice is bled. This is done to give the winemaker's red wine a richer concentration; reducing the amount of juice sitting on the skins will add depth to the flavours. The rosé is just a byproduct of that red wine's process, and can add a quick cash flow to the winery while they wait the 2-3 years to release the red wine.

BLENDING:

This is where a winery has blended the juices of red and white grapes after fermentation to make pink wine. This is usually only done with cheap low end wines.