The Rise of Rosé

The growth of rosé wines continues unabated, having carved out a 10% share of the UK wine market in 2007. This boom continues to encourage more producers to try their hand and create rosé wines. Whilst many are bland and uninspiring, innovative winemakers have harnessed more expressive grape varieties and can offer distinctive rosés full of character.

The art of saignée used at Domaine de l’Olivette has long been the essence of dry Provençal rosés with Bandol as its leading light and has been adopted by many regional producers to make clean, expressive styles.

Couly Duthiel are renowned for their Chinon rosé using Cabernet Franc to express the distinct red berry and mineral character of the soils and the Côtes de Duras rosé at Grand Mayne uses the Bordeaux combination of Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot. The techniques of macerating juice with grape skins have also allowed talented winemakers from the New World to succeed.

The elegant Pinotage rosé from Laibach Vineyards in Stellenbosch, South Africa, is a major achievement from a winery recognized for its success with red wines, and Patagonia’s Valle Perdido Malbec rosé is a triumph of red fruit flavours and weighty palate.

Prosecco Spumante, which remains the fashionable house sparkling wine in style bars, has been joined by ‘Prosecco Raboso’, a rosé created by blending a small proportion of the indigenous red variety Raboso found in the Venice region, to achieve a pale pink colour and add red berry flavours. Another stylish grape, Lagrein, produces a wine, light pink in colour, with lovely notes of violets and toasted almonds.

The traditional blending of still red table wine in Champagne achieves a consistent pink rosé Champagne. A more aromatic Champagne rosé is created by the ‘saignée’ method to extract an attractive pale salmon colour and aromatic flavour components before bleeding the juice off the skins. Mailly Grand Cru and Laurent Perrier are two of the few Champagne houses who risk this method in return for wonderfully perfumed and delicate Champagnes.

See our selection of Rose wines.