MAKING PINK WINE

Wine is the fermented juice of grapes.

After grapes are picked and crushed, the winemaker adds yeast that mingles with the sugar in the grapes and causes fermentation. (The same thing happens when you make bread, yogurt or beer.) The yeast converts the sugar into alcohol and carbon dioxide.

The carbon dioxide burps off into the air (or, if trapped in a bottle, makes a sparkling wine such as Champagne). The alcohol—around 10%-14% by volume—remains in the wine.

The whole process is simple and ordinary. The most expensive bottle of Bordeaux and the cheapest liter of Tunisian tipple are both the fermented juice of grapes.

By and large, that’s the story for both white and red wines. Making pink wine is a twist on this process.

A rosé by any name
The word rosé [roe-zay] is French for “pink,” right in there between white and red. (The Italians say rosato or chiaretto and the Spanish, rosado.) In addition to rosé, the French also use the terms vin gris (“grey wine”) and blanc de noir(s) [blahn (blahnk) duh nwahr] (“white from black”) to signify other rosé wines.

The “black” in blanc de noir simply means the opposite of white and is a common winemaker’s synonym for red- or purple-skinned grapes. Blanc de noir(s) is used especially for pinkish Champagnes (as is, rarely, oeil de perdrix [uh-yuh duh pehr-DREE] or “eye of the partridge,” after the pink-copper color of the bird’s eye).

In the United States, winemakers often use rosé as a designation for pink wine, but also (confusingly) “white,” as in “White Zinfandel” or “White Grenache”—which wines furthermore are called ”blush wines,” an indication that they have the merest hint of tint.

In taste, pink wines range from screechingly dry to mawkishly sweet. By and large, European rosés are dry, while American and Australian blush wines tend to be off-dry or sweet. French rosé Champagne is usually crisp and dry. Flavors of rosé wines are always fruity—tasting of strawberry and raspberry especially—and its best to capture these in the first year or two after the wines are made. Pink wines do not age at all.

In depth of color, pink wines can range from the palest of hues to wines that resemble light reds. The pink color itself can tinged with salmon, coral, orange or copper—or be a bright, light crimson. Much depends on the grape variety used.

Photo by Corina Rainer on unsplash

Pink from red
As the name White Zinfandel indicates, pink wines are made—in some way or other—from the juice of red grapes. But the ways are several.

The simplest way to turn a wine pink is to add some red wine to a white wine, although that is rarely done. The one grand exception is the production of many rosé Champagnes, in which a miniscule amount of red wine (typically from the Pinot Noir-producing town of Bouzy) is added to the (white) base wine before the second fermentation.

Most pink wine is made by crushing red-skinned grapes and leaving the skins in contact with the now-fermenting grape juice for a short period of time (depending on the grape variety, from a few hours up to two days), just enough to faintly color the wine.

Of the several hundred wine grape varieties planted the world over, a mere dozen or so give red juice (for one example, the Alicante Bouschet). The juice of just about all wine grapes is nearly colorless. It is from the skins of the grapes that a pink or a red wine gets its color.

A variant on this method is what the French call saigner, “to bleed” a wine. After crushing red grapes, a winemaker bleeds off a proportion of the juice into a separate fermenting vat (when depends on how pink the winemaker wants the rosé wine to be).

The idea is two-fold: to make a pink wine and to strengthen the red wine. By bleeding off some juice, the winemaker increases the ratio of skins to juice in the red wine.

Where
Most wine-producing countries make pink wines—none as an afterthought. Rosés have a long history as one of the more delectable partners for summer picnics, al fresco meals and casual dining around the world.

France makes rosés over most of the country, some of the best coming from the Loire Valley and the southern areas of the Languedoc and Provence (especially from the areas of Tavel and Bandol). The best Spanish rosados come from the Navarra region north of the Rioja, and are made of the Grenache grape.

Italian rosati are more difficult to find, although some super examples come from the Puglia and Basilicata region. Greece is as famous for rosés as it is for retsina. Perhaps the best place to buy the freshest rosé wine in America is in a Greek restaurant.

In addition to rivers (perhaps torrents) of blush wine, California also makes a fair amount of dry rosé. A lot of it comes from north of San Francisco, but some Central Coast wineries also make delicious vin gris.

Eats
It’s hard to imagine a food that doesn’t go well with dry rosé—and tables all over France, Italy, Spain and Greece prove that point all summer long. (Go to ostensibly Muslim Tunisia and see what the locals drink with roast lamb: Tunisian dry rosé.)

Rosé is white wine that thinks it’s red—a combo of zesty acidity, slap-in-your-face freshness and buckets of fruit flavor.

It is lowbrow enough to match a humble sandwich, and as sassy as a barbecue buffet. It goes with warm foods, cold foods and leftover foods.

Dry rosés—the more austere, the better—are especially good with preparations that use artichokes. Artichokes contain a chemical, cynarin, that makes anything eaten with them taste sweeter. A hint of sweetness can taste delicious in a dry rosé.