PINK & BUBBLY!

Just as the world is neither black nor white, wine is red or white. Rosé in all colours, but mainly light salmon pink colours the modern wine shelf. Pink sells! By now even the producers of the serious bubble know this. TEXT HUIB EDIXHOVEN

The pink revolution has been going on for some time, but anno now it seems to have taken another step forward. Whole hordes of contemporary wine drinkers like nothing better than a wine with a light pink colour. Not only ordinary wine growers have to scale up more and more to meet demand. In the sparkling corner too, consumers are no longer satisfied with just white bubbles. At breakneck speed, sparkling rosé is taking an increasingly dominant position. That was once different. Lily Bollinger, the famous champagne widow who ran the eponymous champagne house until her death, was vehemently opposed to 'Pink Champagne'. Was it because she really disliked it? Or because at the time, most rosé champagne bottles popped open in brothels? Readings differ on that. One thing is certain: the Bollinger house only dared to market the Bollinger Non-Vintage Rosé 30 years after the death of the famous widow. Today, the fence is drawn when it comes to rosé. As a producer, if you don't want to shoot yourself in your own foot, selling 'no' has long since ceased to be an option.

Classic variation
In this WINELIFE, we take a closer look at sparkling rosés made according to the méthode traditionelle. What exactly does that mean? This classic method was once developed in Champagne. The wines were so successful that winemakers from other countries followed suit. There are now producers all over the world who make their sparkling wines according to the classic method. On the label, you then always read something along the lines of 'classic' or 'traditional' method - for example, Classic Method in English, Cap Classique in South African, Método Tradicional in Spanish or Klassische Flaschengärung in German. Does that make the differences between these wines negligible? Anything but. True, we are talking about the most time-consuming and costly way to make sparkling wine (see box), but to end up with a good bubble, more is needed. For instance, this designation really only says something about the method by which the mousse was created and nothing about the grapes used or the climate or soil. And even during the classic method making process, there are endless trade-offs and choices that influence the final product. So you can expect a variety of styles, both in white wines of this type and rosés. In other words, there is a world to discover!

Persuasion
An intriguing aspect of many sparkling rosés is that they may be made by blending red wine and white wine. Tell that to the producer of a non-sparkling wine from an area like France's Provence and they will be in for a treat. Quality rosé, the adage goes, is never made by blending red and white wine. No, these producers confidently argue, a true rosé is made by very brief peeling contact of the blue skins with the colourless flesh. In many cases, these men and women even advocate the method of direct pressing. Here, blue grapes are pressed directly, bringing along only minimal amounts of colouring from the skins. The rest of the fermentation then follows the path of producing a white wine. Ironically, this method is very similar to the method by which ordinary - read: white - champagne is made. After all, most champagne is white, while two-thirds of the grapes in the Champagne region are blue. By pressing extremely quickly and precisely, they manage to turn blue grapes into a white wine in which nothing or no more than a hint of colour can be seen. A true art, which they master to perfection here. In fact, many winemakers in Champagne regard base wine with a hint of colour as a certificate of inability. Still following?

Read the full story now in #WINELIFE#56

Don't want to miss a single edition? Subscribe then subscribe to Winelife magazine now!