Rosé Wine Guide: Taste, Types, Making-Process, Facts

If you like drinking wines and are getting to know them better, you must have encountered Rosé wine. And so, you might wonder, what is Rosé wine? You can get an elegant and beautiful feel from the name itself, but there is more to Rosé wine than just a pretty drink.

What Does Rosé Wine Taste Like?

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Wine has been one of the most renowned drinks of all time. It has existed for a long time and has been a staple for dinner dates, parties, and other special events.

Well, not only on special occasions but also whenever you feel like you are in the mood for wine. Rosé wine has become increasingly popular mainly because of its appearance and usage. This wine is used in famous food and drinks like Frosé and rose bears.

Among the many types of wine is Rosé wine. Just as its name sounds, Rosé wine is a pretty drink that catches the attention of many. Rosé is a type of wine with a pink hue which makes it remarkable because it looks more appealing than other types of wine.

The Rosé wine tastes like a combination of filtered fruit and flowers. In a broader sense, Rosé wine is closer to red wine in taste. However, this does not mean that they are identical. Rosé wine has lighter and brighter tones as well as crispier tasting tones to it.

Main Types of Rosé Wine

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While Rosé wine may appear to be nothing more than the latest trend, Rosé wine has existed for a long time. It’s one of the oldest types of wine. And yes, just like red and white wines, there are also types of Rosé wines.

In all of the major categories of wine, different nuances distinguish them from each other, like acidity, body, sweetness, etc. Each one possesses a delightfully distinct scent and flavor profile, all of its own.

Dry Rosé

Dry Rosé is currently the most popular style of Rosé around the world. This type of Rosé wine is produced almost exclusively in Europe, specifically in the well-known Provence area of France and in northern Spain. The fruity undertones and citrus notes are more prominent in this type of Rosé wine.

Dry Rosé is typically rich in tannins, which give the wine its bitterness and astringency. This type of Rosé wine is also low in sugar. Despite dry Rosé wine having lower sugar levels than other dry wines, it still tends to lean on the sweeter side of the spectrum of dry wines.

Sweet Rosé

Sweet Rosé is manufactured in regions outside Europe. This type of Rosé wine typically features more pronounced fruit tastes as you take a sip. Compared to dry Rosé, the sweet Rosé has higher sugar levels which you will enjoy if you like sweeter types of wine.

Dry to Sweet: Rosé Wine Sweetness Chart

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The wine industry is surprisingly varied; there are various wine types and subcategories to note. The world of wines offers bottles to suit a wide range of preferences.

So, if you are still on your way to appreciating wine, then you still have more tastes to try. The wine journey is interesting, and you will find a wine that resonates with you the most.

Rosé wine, for instance, is a broad category. This wine includes a wide range of mixes with varying sweetness and dryness. A wide range of sweetness levels may be found in Rosé wines.

These wines can range from extremely sweet to almost bone-dry. Rosé wines made in more recent years tend to be sweeter than their older counterparts. Here is a sweetness chart for a better look into these subcategories.

Dryness & Sweetness

Color Shade

Taste

Example

Very dry

Very-dry

● Grapefruit

● Herbs

● Cucumber

● Berries

● Watermelon

Other floral qualities

● Grenache roses

 

● Tavel

Dry

Dry

● Melon

● Mango

● Grapefruit

● Orange

● Passionfruits

● Strawberry

Peppercorn

● Tempranillo

● Pinot Noir

Semi dry

Semi-dry

● Cherry

● Plum

● Ripe and fresh flavors

● Smoke

● Cabernet Sauvignon

● Syrah

Off dry

Off-dry

● Strawberry

● Cotton candy

(other red fruits)

● Malbec

● Sangiovese

Semi sweet

Semi-sweet

● Dried fruit

● Roses

Spices

● Rose champagne

Sweet

Sweet

● Strawberry

● Raspberry

● Cherry

● Melon

Fresh flowers

● White Zinfandel

● French Rose Wine

● White Merlot

Very sweet

Very-sweet

● Peach

● Stonefruit

● Apricot

● Pomegrenate

Berry

● Pink Moscato

How Are Rosé Wine Made?

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Picking

The main type of grape used in making Rosé wine is black grapes. However, there’s a lone exception the Rosé champagne, which incorporates Chardonnay as an essential recipe. This being said, the first important thing to do for making Rosé wine is to harvest the dark grapes from the vineyard.

Many vintners choose to cultivate a grape variety with which they expect to produce red wine while also setting aside a portion of their harvest to make Rosé wine. This way, they hit two birds with one stone and can create two types of wine in a crop.

Crushing

The next step is for the grapes to get crushed. This can be done in several ways, including using a machine or the traditional method of utilizing your hands or feet. Grape stomping, also known as foot trodding, is used by some of the more traditional, modest wineries to crush the fruit directly in the vats.

Fermentation

This is the most basic and popular process wines have to go through. Almost everyone knows that this is a necessary step for wine completion. The fermentation process is the thrilling portion and where everything magical about wine happens– this process transforms grapes into alcohol.

The fermenting process begins with adding black grape juice to a stainless steel tank. After that, yeast is introduced to ferment the fruit sugar, which results in the production of alcohol and carbon dioxide.

The skins are kept during fermentation to allow the wine to absorb the color, flavor, and tannins of the grapes, much as they would be in making red wine.

However, to make Rosé wine, it is necessary to ferment at a notably lower temperature than white wine. The fermentation typically takes 12 to 36 hours, minimizing grape skin contact.

Pressing

Following the brief fermentation period, the wine must be pressed to eliminate all traces of grape skins from the finished product. This is where you can see the wine’s pink color.

Bottling

The delicate fruit flavors of pink wines are bottled right away, making them ideal for early consumption. However, one type of Rosé wine named vintage Rosé champagne is exempt from this as they are ideally bottle aged.

Approaches to Rosé Wine

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There are typically three techniques to make Rosé wine. All of these techniques include contact with grape skins. However, there are slight nuances as they take somewhat different routes from the barrel to the bottle. Here are three of the most common approaches to Rosé wine.

Saignee

The Saignee method has been utilized to create some of the Rosés with the longest shelf lives. This approach is a result of red winemaking. When fermented red wine, about 10 percent of the juice is drained.

The process of fermenting red wine involves a higher skin-to-juice ratio. And so, there is plenty of juice and skin contact. Due to a greater time of the juice being in contact with grape skins, this approach results in tannic tastes and a deeper-bodied flavor profile.

The wine is then ready to undergo another fermentation process that turns it into a Rosé.

Maceration

Maceration is one of the most familiar and popular approaches to making wine. This process involves pressing and sitting wineskins in the container or barrel. Unlike red wine, the grape skin for Rosé wine is not seated as long to achieve the pink shade.

The period of letting the skin sit depends on how dark they are. If you use grapes with a lighter shade, maceration can take up to a day, while using a darker shade may only take a few hours.

Vin Gris

Vin Gris is a French term that translates to “gray wine.” This method results in almost white wines. This means that Rosé wines that have undergone this process have a lighter shade of pink. This approach also utilizes the maceration method. However, in Vin Gris, the seating time of the grapes with their skin is reduced.

Facts About Rosé Wine

  • Rosé wine is one of the most flexible as you can create one with any red grape variety. It can also be grown in any wine area.
  • Unlike other wine types, Rosé wine is not ideal for aging. In fact, when you purchase one, you should drink it during the 2nd-3rd year of its release.
  • Rosé wine is not a universal name as it’s called differently in different places. France calls it Rosé, Italy calls it Rosato, and Spain calls it Rosado.
  • As people usually mix up, it’s important to note that Rosé wine differs from Blush. Rosé wine is dry, while Blush wines are on the semi-sweet spectrum.

Summary

There are many types of wines around the world, so getting to know each of them and their categories is important for better learning and experience.

Learning about wine is not only about tasting but also experiencing and discovering new types and flavors.

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