As promised, we’ll be continuing our exploration into the world of wines, and this time we’ll be taking a look at the pink concoctions Rosé wines boast of. Such a wine is made from an eclectic assortment of grapes and can be found worldwide.
A brief overview…
One of the most common misconceptions about rosé is that it can also be made by mixing red with white wine, but in actuality, this process is frowned upon by the wine community. As opposed to white grapes that produce white wine, and red grapes that produce red wine, pink grapes don’t exist. So, we don’t blame you if you’re intrigued to know how winemakers create a style of wine that always has such a lovely pink hue. Interestingly enough, the answer is through skin contact. Irrelevant of their colour, when all grapes are juiced, the extract that runs out of the fruit is clear.
Wines don’t receive their colour from the juice but from the juice’s contact with the skin of the grapes. Winemakers produce rosé by pulverising red grapes and then allowing the juice to infuse with the skins for this brief period. In its primary form, it’s produced with the skin contact method, a process referred to as maceration. Black-skinned grapes are crushed and the skins are allowed to remain in contact with the juice for a short period, typically for the duration of one to three days.
As the skins and the juice marinate together, the colour from the skin ‘bleeds’ into the juice, giving the wine its yellow or red colour. Once the juice begins to take on the beautiful pink colour the winemaker desires, the skins are removed and the juice starts to ferment, creating delightfully delicious rosé.
Granted that the wine region most well-known for creating the most consistent rosés is Provence, a wine region in France. That said, here at Sciacca, we believe in providing a healthy variety to our loyal clientele, whether local or foreign. So we decided to grasp the opportunity and share some of our favourite rosés…
Rosa Dei Masi
Fresh and fruity, yet simultaneously complex and elegant. This rosé is a new interpretation of wine thanks to the use of Masi‘s speciality appassimento technique (described in one of our previous blogs) to concentrate the wine’s acidity and freshness. Made from Refosco grapes grown on the estate’s property.
This wine is a Supervenetian, and a “brother” to the famous red wine Campofiorin. A brilliantly distinctive rosé, that while full of character and packed with richness of flavour, is delicate in colour. With pleasant aromas of wild strawberries and a hint of spice, with some rose petal notes. When tasted, one can immediately experience its lip-smacking cherry and blackcurrant fruit undertones, some creamy complexity, and a refreshing dry finish makes for a beautiful accompaniment to a good meal or food platter.
Rosé d’Anjou
A fresh and fruity rosé wine, but complex and elegant at the same time. This variety is an epithet for rosés from the Anjou district of France’s western Loire Valley wine region. These medium-sweet rosés witnessed a period of huge popularity in the mid to late 20th century, where in the late 1980s they composed nearly 55% of all wine production in the Anjou district.
Largely connected to over-sweet rosés made predominantly from Grolleau Noir, with small percentages of Cabernet Franc, Cabernet Sauvignon, Gamay, Malbec and Pineau d’Aunis permitted. Rosé d’Anjou wines can be sold as ‘Primeur‘ or ‘Nouveau‘ – a much-fruitier style of wine and almost entirely free from tannins, owing to the fermentation process of carbonic maceration.
Perhaps one of the most noteworthy things to mention is that, according to wine experts’ recommendations, such a rosé should be consumed fairly early, soon after release specifically when likened to the more intricate, more serious rosé wines made under the Cabernet d’Anjou title. Under official law, to warrant this title the wines may not be released before the 38th day preceding the third Thursday of November of the year of harvest.
Local Rosés
Medina Rosé Grenache D.O.K. Malta
A pleasant, zesty rosé made wholly from finest Malta grown red Grenache grapes celebrated for manufacturing top quality rosé wines with flavours redolent of black-pepper dusted strawberry fruit. Medina is a collection of unoaked, fresh fruity wines made from hand-picked grapes. The series consists of a Chardonnay, Sauvignon Blanc, a blend of Girgentina and Chardonnay, a blend of Vermentino and Zibibbo, a dry rosé made from Grenache, a Syrah, a Cabernet Franc, a Merlot, a blend of Syrah with Grenache and Carignan, and a Sangiovese from Malta.
Fenici Rosé
Paying tribute to the Phoenicians who, during the first millennium BC, the name Fenici originates from this era’s winemaking culture that spread throughout the Mediterranean and gifted European Malta with its idiosyncratic Semitic language. The Fenici line is a range of white, rosé, and red wines vinified to harvest amazingly fresh and fruity characters. Fenici wines descend from Meridiana’s estate and from closely supervised third party properties situated in the vicinity.
This rosé has a vivacious, purplish-pink colour, strawberry and cherry aromas with floral undertones and a fresh and well-balanced acidity. It’s a vintage characterized by a very wet winter, which has facilitated in a good water retention in the soil to assure consistent germination. All this is articulated through wines which are predominantly rich in aromas with classic olfactory notes reminiscent of their territory, elegance and a long finish on the palate.
As you can see, there is a vast variety of rosé wines, so much so, it was challenging for us to narrow down and mention our favourites. Of course, just like our previous blog, we’ve only mentioned a conservative list of rosés we have available at Sciacca.
If you would like to discover more about the rosés we have available, we encourage you to book a table at one of our restaurants, to better appreciate this burst of flavour perfectly encapsulated in a bottle!