A Rose` is a Rose`

Here's another in our occasional series, 'The Grapes of Trio'.

What is Rose`? (I can't figure out how to make the accent mark work on the computer so from now on even tho it's pronounced 'Row-ZAY, I'm typing Rose. Live with it).  The simple answer is that it is a wine done in the white style but made from red grapes. However, the wines that you end up with are anything but simple. They can be complex gems that offer the best of both worlds.

Rose wines are very respected in Europe, especially France, where the summers are too hot to drink heavy red wines all the time. The Frenchman, doing whatever he can to avoid drinking white wine, turns to the chilled Rose as a refreshing summertime alternative. Here in 'Merica they're just starting to gain in popularity and a few valley wineries offer them now.

We decided before harvest that we would do a Rose at Trio. We were working with two traditional Rose grapes, Sangiovese and Mourvedre, and thought it would be fun to compare them side-by-side. We decided to do them in the Saignee` method where you crush the grapes and let them sit in the fermenter for a while (in our case they each had about 24 hours on the skins). Then you remove only juice and transfer it to another fermenter where it is fermented at cooler temperatures like you would a white wine. This helps preserve the aromas and the fruit central to the Rose. 

The other way to make Rose is to take the red grapes and press them whole-cluster right away so the juice gets almost no contact with the skins.  We chose the former, saignee, method for a few reasons. One, we like the extra flavors, colors, and aromas the wine gets from spending more time in contact with the skins. Two, when we drain juice from the grapes it actually concentrates the flavors of the grapes you took the juice from and when that wine is pressed it is, theoretically, more intense. Third, we didn't have our press set up yet so we couldn't have done it the other way even if we wanted to. Sometimes decisions are made that way.

Anyway, as is often the case in the winery, we had leftover wine from both the roses and no container small enough for each so we just combined them in one keg. Later we went back to taste all the wine as it finished fermenting and the keg that had the inadvertent blend tasted better than the two wines by themselves!  We were surprised but elated that the accident created a very distinctive wine. 

The wine was dubbed 'Tres Rose' and it is coming along very nicely. The color is beautiful, lighter red than Pinot Noir and very distinctive. The aromas are of citrus and cherry pie and whenever we go to taste it I can't stop drinking it. The Sangiovese didn't get 100% dry so there is likely to be a tiny, tiny bit of detectable sweetness that will make it even more refreshing. Hopefully there will be some left for you all. We are going to blend it and bottle it the first week of March. I think it will be a popular wine, especially on the hot days we have here in July and August.

Comments

[David Sheppard]

I enjoyed that. A friend who works in SWA has promised me that, when I go over to help with harvest, we'll make a rosé from Shiraz as an experiment.

And the aaccent on the 'e'? On an Apple keyboard you hold down the 'option' key; the symbol appears, you let go of the key and type the 'e' which falls into place under it.

Cheers.

[David Sheppard]

Sorry, I need to amend that: you hold down the 'option' key AND type the 'e', then let go of the key and type the "e' again.