Rosé, or as we like to call it, summer water. It’s the signature of a summer picnic and makes everyone feel happy. A common misconception is that rosé is simply red and white wine mixed together but that’s just a myth.
Wine gets its color from the skin of the grapes, not from the inside, which makes sense if you’ve ever bitten open a grape and looked at it. The pigmentation lives within the skin and the center is basically clear.
Rosé happens when the skin of red grapes touches wine for only a short time, which is why there can be varying degrees of pinkness. Usually, skins are fermenting in wine for weeks, whereas rosé can be just a few hours.
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There are three different methods of producing rosé: maceration, saignée, and blending. Maceration is the most common which is when the crushed grapes are let to soak and disintegrate in the juice. The skins are then removed to avoid any further coloring and the remaining liquid is fermented into wine. Saignée, or “bled” is when a red wine is being made and some of the juice is bled off and kept for making a separate vat of rosé. Blending is when a tiny bit of red wine is combined into white wine but this is very uncommon and can be looked down upon by the wine community.
The length of time skins are left to soak in the juice also affects the flavor and taste of a rosé so the next time you’re sipping your favorite bottle of pink drink, see if you notice a correlation between the color and flavor!
