Rosé, Reconsidered

For a long time, rosé has had a bit of a reputation. Pale pink wine often served very cold, perhaps a little too sweet, and not necessarily taken all that seriously. For many of us, our first experience of rosé was something closer to a sugary summer drink than a wine we’d spend much time thinking about.

But oh how rosé has changed.

There’s a whole new world of pink wines to explore from bone-dry Provençal styles to cloudy, textural natural rosés. There's also deeper-coloured skin-contact wines and bottles that sit somewhere between what we traditionally think of as rosé and orange wine.

What actually is rosé?

At its simplest, rosé is made from red grapes, but with considerably less skin contact than a red wine.

The juice inside most red grapes is actually pale or colourless. It’s the grape skins that provide the colour, along with tannins and many of the compounds that contribute flavour and texture. By limiting the amount of time the juice spends with the skins, winemakers can make a wine that is somewhere between white and red in colour, style and character.

There are a few different ways to make rosé, but two common methods are direct pressing and short skin maceration.

With direct pressing, red grapes are pressed soon after harvest and the brief contact with the skins gives the juice its delicate pink hue. With skin maceration, the crushed grapes spend a few hours, or sometimes longer, sitting with their skins before being pressed and fermented. The longer the contact, generally, the more colour, flavour and texture the wine will develop.

The rosé of the past

Rosé itself is certainly not new. In fact, pale wines made with limited skin contact have been around for thousands of years, and Provence has a particularly long history of rosé production.

But the rosé many of us grew up knowing was shaped by something slightly different: the popularity of sweeter “blush” wines.

There’s nothing inherently wrong with a sweet rosé, of course. But after decades of pink wine being associated with sweetness, rosé developed a reputation for being uncomplicated. The modern rosé revival has rather dramatically changed that perception.

Enter dry rosé . . .

Today, many of the most exciting rosés are dry, savoury and food-friendly, with little or no obvious sweetness.

A good dry rosé might bring notes of wild berries, citrus, herbs, florals and stone fruit, balanced by bright acidity and, depending on how it was made, a little phenolic grip or savoury texture.

Provence has played a huge role in establishing this style. Its famously pale rosés have become a global reference point for dry, fresh and mineral-driven pink wines.

But there’s another movement pushing rosé somewhere even more interesting: natural and low-intervention winemaking.

What makes a rosé “natural”?

There isn't one official recipe for natural wine, and “natural” can mean slightly different things to different regions and winemakers. Generally, natural or low-intervention winemaking aims to allow the grapes and the place they come from to express themselves with as little manipulation in the winery as possible.

That might mean organically or biodynamically farmed grapes, native yeast fermentation, minimal additions and filtration, and lower levels of sulphur.

Why does rosé get grouped with orange wine?

At first glance, orange wine and rosé don't seem like obvious companions.

One is pink, the other is orange. One is usually made from red grapes, the other from white. So why do they so often appear next to each other on natural wine lists?

The answer is skin contact!

Rosé and orange wine are essentially two different points on the same winemaking spectrum.

For rosé, red grapes have relatively brief contact with their skins before the juice is separated and fermented. For orange wine, white grapes are fermented with their skins, often for much longer than you would expect from conventional white winemaking.

That extended contact gives orange wines their distinctive colour, but also contributes tannin, texture and more savoury, complex flavours.

So, while rosé is usually about less skin contact, orange wine is about more.

And somewhere in between, you'll find some wonderfully intriguing wines that don't fit neatly into either box.

Rosé doesn't always mean pale and delicate

This is one of the most exciting things about exploring natural and low-intervention rosé.

A wine can still be recognisably rosé while having considerably more colour, texture and structure than the pale pink wines we're used to seeing.

Some producers allow red grapes a little more time on their skins, creating wines that can be darker in colour and more textured on the palate. Others work with varieties such as Pinot Gris, whose naturally pinkish skins can produce wines that blur the boundaries between white, rosé and orange wine.

These are wines that can have some of the refreshing qualities we love about rosé, while bringing the savoury complexity and gentle grip we often associate with orange or natural wines.

They also do brilliantly with food.

A new generation of rosé

The best thing about modern rosé's is that its encouraged the category to become much broader.

There are still pale, crisp and beautifully refreshing rosés that are made for long lunches on a warm day. But there are also savoury rosés, textural rosés, natural rosés, pét-nat rosés and skin-contact wines that sit somewhere between rosé and orange.

So if your idea of rosé is still tied to the sweet blush wines of the past, it might be time to reconsider.

Rosé has grown up! Check out our curated selection here.