Understanding a bottle of wine: rosé
A fresh, aromatic wine that is becoming increasingly pale and is on the rise.
Rosé is perhaps the most misunderstood wine in Catalonia, but the habits of young consumers, who prefer fresh wines, are helping it, and it's becoming increasingly popular. The confusion begins with the winemaking process itself: there's a mistaken belief that it's a blend of white and red wine, but this practice is completely prohibited in the European Union. Rosé wine is made from red grapes or a blend of red and white grapes. To obtain that attractive rosé color, precise control of the maceration time between the grapes and their skins is essential. It's one of the most difficult wines to produce.
It's important to remember that the grape itself is always whitish, even in the case of red grapes. The dark color is in the skin. To achieve the reddish hue of rosé wine, it's necessary to use red grapes but separate them from their skins after a few hours. That is, the red grapes are left to macerate with their skins and then separated (an action known as destemming). bleedingAfter just a couple of hours—to achieve a pale rosé—or after a couple of days—to produce a more intense one—this color, which is so difficult to find, will give us very important clues about the type of wine we have in our hands.
"Until about 15 years ago, classic Catalan rosé wine was very reddish," explains Anton Castellà, winemaker and technical secretary of the DO Catalunya. Rosés from Provence (France), on the other hand, were paler, and this is the hue that the market has ended up imposing. "Some are so pale they even look gray," explains Castellà. If we have a pale rosé wine that has had a short maceration, "on the palate it will be a lighter wine and not as structured," as one that has been macerated for a longer time. The redder ones will also have a more intense flavor and more aromatic nuances. "The maceration time doesn't just influence the color. There are many aromatic precursors in the skins," explains Castellà. So, the redder the rosé wine, the greater its complexity and aromas, thanks to having macerated with its skins for a longer period.
The aromas of this type of wine, as its color also indicates, "will be reminiscent of red fruits, such as raspberries, strawberries, and even some sweets like lollipops or candy sticks," explains Anna Casabona, sommelier at Juvé & Camps. "Sometimes they have orange hues, which means it's a rosé that has already passed its optimal drinking window or that it was made with oxygen present and was intended to be less fruity. Rosé wines without sulfites can also have an orange color," Casabona explains.
Most rosé wines are young, and the best time to drink them is the year after the harvest. However, some winemakers choose to ferment them in oak barrels, which produces a more sophisticated rosé. This wine will lose some color and fruity aromas, but will gain other aromas thanks to the oak and will have greater longevity.
Is a brisado a rosé?
In Catalonia, brisa wine is becoming increasingly common, a wine with a hue reminiscent of rosé. However, they are entirely different. While rosé is primarily made from red grapes that have macerated with their skins for only a few hours, brisa is made from white grapes that have fermented completely with their skins. In the case of brisa wine, also known as Orange Wine, the bleeding (saignée) takes place at the very end of the process, after alcoholic fermentation has finished. This extracts the coloring matter from the skins, resulting in a white wine with a golden hue, explains Castellano. In fact, the red wine is made using the exact same method, but with red-skinned grapes. Casabona recalls that "when farmers made wine at home without the resources available today (such as stainless steel tanks, presses, and grape cooling systems), they were already making wine this way." Because the grapes have fermented with their skins, "it has more texture, it can be somewhat harsh, like a red wine, and it's less fruity," explains Casabona.
DO and varieties
In Catalonia, almost all the DOs (Designation of Origin) produce rosé wines, which can be made with almost any red grape variety. In Montsant and Priorat, they make them from Garnacha Tinta and Merlot, but in Conca de Barberà, for example, they make them with Taladrado, a variety historically linked to rosé, although it is increasingly used for red wine as well. In the Empordà DO, on the other hand, they also use Garnacha Tinta (known there as Almez) to make rosé, but they blend it with the white and grey varieties (known as Almez Rojo). Although rosé wine is not the most popular in Catalonia and its production is very complicated because the grapes are so fragile, many wineries continue to invest in it, as it is a way to expand their portfolio.
