Rosé

It is not known when the first wine labeled as a rosé was produced, but it is very likely that many of the earliest red wines made were closer in appearance to today's rosés than they would be to modern red wines. This is because many of the winemaking techniques used to make today's darker, more tannic red wines (such as extended maceration and harder pressing) were not widely practised in ancient winemaking. Both red and white wine grapes were often pressed soon after harvest, (with very little maceration time) by hand, feet or even sack cloth, creating juice that was only lightly pigmented. Even after the development of newer, more efficient wine presses, many ancient and early winemakers still preferred making the lighter colored and fruitier style of wines. There was an understanding, as early as the time of the Ancient Greeks and Roman winemakers, that harder pressing and letting the juice "sit" for a period with the skins would make darker, heartier wines, but the resulting wines were often considered too harsh and less desirable. This sentiment lasted well into the Middle Ages, when the pale clarets from Bordeaux were starting to gain the world's attention. To the powerful English market, the most prized clarets were, according to wine historian Hugh Johnson, the ''vin d'une nuit or "wine of one night", which were pale-rosé colored wines made from juice that was allowed only a single night of skin contact. The darker wine produced from must that had longer skin contact were known as the vin vermeilh (or pinpin'' to the English) was considered to be of much lesser quality. In 1975, Sutter Home's "White Zinfandel" wine experienced a stuck fermentation, a problem in which the yeast goes dormant, or in some cases dies off before all the sugar is turned to alcohol. Winemaker Bob Trinchero put it aside for two weeks, then upon tasting it he decided to sell this pinker, sweeter wine. In 1976, wine writer Jerry D. Mead visited Mill Creek Vineyards in Sonoma County, California. The name caught on as a marketing name for the semi-sweet wines from producers such as Sutter Home and Beringer. Today, Blush wine appears on wine lists more often as a category, rather than a specific wine. In 2010 Mill Creek produced a rosé wine for the first time in years, although Jeremy Kreck (Charles' grandson and current winemaker) chose not to use the Blush name. Although "blush" originally referred to a color (pale pink), it now tends to indicate a relatively sweet pink wine, typically with 2.5% residual sugar; in North America, dry pink wines are usually marketed as rosé but sometimes as blush. In Europe, almost all pink wines are referred to as rosé regardless of sugar levels, even semi-sweet ones from California. As the term rosé regained popularity in the US market, shares of wine labeled "blush" declined from 22% of all wines consumed in the US in 1997 to 15% in 2003. Rosé became a viral drink in 2015, with men who drink rosé being referred to as brosé. In summer 2016, a slushy variation, frosé, was developed at the Bar Primi in New York. == Winemaking methods ==

Rosés can be produced in a variety of ways with the most common method being early pressing of red grape varieties after a very short period, usually 12–24 hours, of skin-contact (maceration). During maceration, phenolics such as the anthocyanins and tannins that contribute to color as well as many flavor components are leached from the skins, seeds and any stems left in contact with the must. In addition to adding color and flavor, these phenolics also serve as antioxidants, protecting the wine from degradation of oxygen exposure. While red wines will often have maceration last several days to even several weeks, the very limited maceration of rosés means that these wines will have less stable color, potential flavor components and oxygen protection. This contributes to wines with shorter shelf-life that are meant to be consumed soon after release. Vin gris Unlike the maceration method which gives some, albeit very brief, time for the juice to be in contact with the skins vin gris are wines made from the immediate pressing of red skin grapes without any maceration time. Despite the name vin gris, the resulting juice is actually not grey but rather a very pale pink that is usually much lighter than traditionally made rosés using the limited maceration and saignée methods. Under French wine laws, wines labelled gris de gris must only be made from lightly tinted grape varieties such as Cinsault, Gamay and Grenache gris. The style is a specialty of the Lorraine ''Appellation d'Origine Contrôlée'' (AOC) Côtes de Toul made from Gamay and in Morocco where the orange-pink wine is made from a blend of Cinsault, Grenache and Cabernet Sauvignon. Decolorization Another method of producing rosé is to severely decolorize a red wine using absorbent charcoal such as activated carbon. This purer form of charcoal obtained by the dry distillation of carbon compounds (such as wood or peat) has a high ratio of surface area to weight that adsorbs color compounds as well as other phenolics and colloids in a wine. While it can be used to decolorize a wine, often much more than just color is stripped from the wine which makes this method very rarely used in the production of quality rosés. == Color ==

With the exception of very few varieties, known as teinturiers, most wine grapes produce clear or colorless juice. This includes such well known red wine grape varieties such as Cabernet Sauvignon and Pinot noir. The color in red wine comes from phenolics in the skin called anthocyanins that react with other components in wine (such as tannins, acetaldehyde and pyruvic acid) to form polymeric pigments. The anthocyanins are extracted from the skin during the process of maceration which can last from a few hours in the case of some rosés (which usually only have 20–50 mg/L of anthocyanins) to several days in the case of most red wines (which often have in excess of 250 mg/L of anthocyanins). in France, rosés in Provence display one of the different colors: melon (cantaloupe), peach, redcurrant, grapefruit, mango, mandarin. Many studies have shown that the color of wine influences consumers' perceptions about the wine. While these studies have shown that consumers tend to prefer on visual inspection the darker rosés, in blind taste tests where color could not be visually discerned (such as using black wine glasses), often consumers preferred the lighter-colored rosés. For these reasons, many rosé winemakers are mindful of the color quality of their rosé and make winemaking decisions based on this factor. This includes the extent of maceration, whether or not to do a saignee from a darker red wine and even to do a color adjustment by blending in some finished red wine in order to reach the desired color. ==Aromas and flavors==

The aromas and flavor of rosés are primarily influenced by the particular grape varieties used to produce the wine, but the method of production also plays an important part. The light, fruity character of many rosés come from volatile thiols that are found as flavor precursors in the grape skins. The most prominent of these are 3-mercaptohexanol-1-ol and 3-mercaptohenyl acetate. These are extracted from the grape skins during maceration but are less likely to be extracted at temperatures below 20 °C (68 °F). As a result, producers doing a "cold soak" maceration (with much lower temperature) to limit microbial and oxidative activity may extract less of these compounds. During fermentation, other flavor components such as the esters phenethyl acetate and isoamyl acetate also form and contribute to a wine's aromas. ==French rosés==

France is the top global producer of rosé, accounting for 35% of the world's supply. It also leads in consumption, with one-third of the wine consumed in the country being rosé. Many of the earliest red wines produced in such notable wine regions as Bordeaux, Burgundy and Champagne were "rosé-style" wines made from juice that had only brief periods of skin contact during winemaking. Today rosé is produced throughout France from the cooler climate rosé Champagnes and Loire Valley wines to the warm Mediterranean influence climates of Provence and the southern Rhone Valley. Over the period between 2010 and 2024, exports of rosé from Provence have surged by about 500%. However, many modern rosé Champagnes are produced as regular Champagnes but are later "colored up" by adding red Pinot noir wines to the finished wine. According to wine expert Karen MacNeil, some Champagne producers believe this second method adds more richness and age-ability to the wine. rosés are made in many ways and from most common rosé wine grape varieties. This is due to the large use of the PGI appellation system. In the Jura wine region, the Arbois AOC makes very pale, pink red wines that are often mistaken for rosés from Pinot noir and the local Poulsard and Trousseau varieties. But the region also makes even paler actual rosés from the same grape varieties that are pressed after only a few hours of skin contact. In Beaujolais rosés are made from the Gamay grape using the same carbonic maceration techniques as the red wines except that the free-run juice that is released by the weight of the whole berry grapes in the tank is periodically drained off throughout the process to avoid extracting too much color and phenolics. In Bordeaux, rosé production is permitted in most AOC using the same varieties as the region's well known reds—Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Cabernet franc, Malbec, Petit Verdot and Carmenere. ==Other European rosés==

Italy rosé Like France, rosés are made throughout Italy with the style and grape varieties used changing depending on the region and local climate. The long history of Italian rosés, particularly in the warm southern part of the country, stem from difficulties in the early days of winemaking to make dark, fully colored dry red wines without temperature controlled fermentation vessels. As the must macerated with the skins, the intense heat of the process would often kill the yeast resulting in a stuck fermentation and residual sugar in the remaining wine. Eventually Italian winemakers realized that if they pressed the wines early in the process, remaining the skins, they could complete the fermentation albeit with a lightly colored wine. The Italians have several terms for rosé style wines beginning with the term rosato that is a permitted wine style in several Denominazione di origine controllata. These wine tend to be very pale in color with slightly dark wines (but not dark enough to be considered a rosso or red wine) being labeled as Chiaretto. Ramato, a specialty in the Veneto, are copper-colored rosés made from pink-skinned Pinot grigio grape that are allowed a period of extended maceration. The term Cerasuolo (meaning "cherry red") describes a vividly colored rosé and is seen frequently in the Abruzzo region where rosé made in the Montepulciano d'Abruzzo region from deeply pigmented Montepulciano grape are given a special designation within the DOC. Rotling refers to a rosé that is either made from multiple grape varieties that can either be all red wine varieties or a mixture of white and red grape varieties. This designation is required on all Tafelwein (table wine), Landwein ("country wine" similar to the French vin de pays) and Qualitätswein bestimmter Anbaugebiete (QbA) level but its presence on the label is optional for Prädikatswein (the highest classification of German wine). In the Baden region, Badisch Rotgold is a specialty rosé made from Spätburgunder (Pinot noir) and Ruländer (Pinot gris). Under German wine law the wine must be made to at least QbA level (meaning the grapes must be harvested with a ripeness level of at least 51°Oe to 72°Oe. In Austria, Styria is known for a particular type of rosé called Schilcher that is made from the indigenous Blauer Wildbacher grape that is rarely grown outside of western Styria. The wine is noted for it fruity flavor and high levels of acidity. In the Alicante and Jumilla DOs the winemakers made their red wines and rosados using a method that is almost the reverse of the saignee method (where rosé juice is bled off the red wine). This method, known as the doble pasta (meaning "double paste") takes the skins from the early pressed rosé wine and adds them to the red wine (similar to the Italian ripasso method). The rosados are made like normal with a light, fruity style while the red wines made with the extra skins are darker in color and more deeply concentrated. Other Spanish wine regions noted for their rosados include the denominaciones de origen (DOs) of Utiel-Requena, Yecla, Txakoli, Cigales, Tierra de Leon and Ribera del Duero. Portugal In 1942, a winemaker from Vinho Verde, Fernando Van Zeller Guedes, was inspired by the sales success that the lightly sparkling wine from his home region was having in Portugal and Brazil. He decided to try making a more fully sparkling rosé that was sweetened to appeal to the mass European and North American markets. At the end of World War II, production of Guedes' wine, Mateus, named after the Mateus Palace in the Vila Real Municipality, was in full operation with sales steadily climbing. By the 1980s, both the red and sparkling white versions of Mateus accounted for over 40% of the entire Portuguese wine industry, with worldwide sales of 3.25 million cases. However, sales of Mateus eventually started to decline, and though it still being produced, with Mateus introducing a Tempranillo sparkling rosé in 2005, it is not quite the dominating force in the market that it once was. The history of Lancers, the other, notable Portuguese sparkling rosé that rose up after World War II, is quite similar to Mateus. The winemaking family of José Maria da Fonseca in the Setúbal DOC, one of the oldest Portuguese wine producers, received word from a distributor in New York City about American servicemen returning from Europe having a taste for many of the new wines they tried on their tours. In 1944, Fonseca released Lancers in a distinctive stone crock. Today, the wine is fully sparkling, using the "continuous method" of fermentation in large stainless steel tanks instead of individual wine bottles. While its rival, Mateus, is mostly still found in Europe, Lancers has remained in the North American market. ==New World rosés==

White Zinfandels and blushes While there have been rosés made in the European style throughout the American winemaking history, it wasn't until the end of the 20th century that "pink wines" became a truly significant segment of the American wine market. In what has been described by wine experts such as Jancis Robinson as a "marketing triumph", California winemaker Bob Trinchero of Sutter Home salvaged a stuck fermentation of his 1972 red Zinfandel wine by releasing a paler, sweeter rosé colored wine that he labeled as "White Zinfandel". Though he wasn't the first Californian winemaker to make a rosé version of Zinfandel, he was the first to aggressively market it as a new wine style. Consequently, Sutter Home saw sales of "White Zin" soar from 25,000 cases in 1980 to more than 1.5 million in 1986. The wine became so popular that it actually saved old vine Zinfandel plantings that were in danger of being uprooted and replanted with more "marketable" international varieties, and even encouraged newer plantings. The eastern end of Long Island has over 60 vineyards and wineries that produce a range of rosé wines. == See also ==