Concept card Process
Rosé winemaking
In one sentence
A wine whose extraction is stopped before it makes a red: the juice of black grapes spends a few hours at most on the skins.
Stopping extraction in time
Black grapes
Their juice is almost always colourless: the colour is in the skin.
A few hours at most
Sometimes none with direct pressing; 3 to 10 h at 15-20 °C are generally enough (IFV).
The juice is separated
Drawn off from a red-wine vat (saignée), or by direct pressing.
A white-style fermentation
Settling, yeast and temperature steer the aromas.
Key points
- Most rosés are neither a diluted red nor a tinted white: their extraction stops short of red.
- Saignée: part of the juice is drawn, without pressing, from a red-wine vat; the grapes are as ripe as for a red.
- Direct pressing: the black grapes are pressed straight away, with or without a few hours of maceration.
- The colour of the must when maceration ends is a long way from that of the finished wine.
What it changes in the glass
- Saignée: a more vinous wine, with greater ageing potential.
- Direct pressing: an aromatic, fresh wine, to drink soon.
- Banana, strawberry, pear drops: a so-called fermentative profile, steered by how fermentation is run.
Not to be confused with…
It ferments for days with its skins; a rosé's juice spends a few hours on them at most, then ferments alone.
Also from black grapes, but pressed quickly and very gently with no maceration, so the juice stays almost colourless.
An estate picks Grenache early, slightly under-ripe, for a lively rosé to drink within the year. Which route is it most likely taking?
One question to test yourself: it does not count towards your progress.
Two routes, two harvests
The Institut français de la vigne et du vin distinguishes two routes, and they do not call for the same fruit: the picking date depends on the rosé you intend to make.
- Saignée: a fraction of the juice is drawn off, without pressing, from a vat meant for red, after a few hours of contact. The ripeness aimed at is a red's.
- Direct pressing: the black grapes are pressed straight away, with or without a few hours of maceration. It calls for suitable equipment, a pneumatic press.
- For direct pressing, the IFV advises slight under-ripeness, for liveliness; in its trials, the earliest picking date was generally the better liked.
Colour is decided in hours
Contact times are short: a few hours separate a pale rosé from a deep one, and time is not the only factor: temperature matters too.
3 to 10 h
of contact are generally enough, according to the IFV
15 to 20 °C
the temperature at which those times are enough
- Part of the colour is then lost: held back by the lees, absorbed by the yeasts, altered by fermentation.
- Hence the IFV's warning: the must at the end of maceration is very far from the finished product.
The style is set afterwards
Once the juice is separated, a rosé is handled largely like a white. Depending on settling, yeast and fermentation temperature, the IFV describes two directions.
- A reductive profile, on tropical fruit and grapefruit.
- A fermentative profile, on banana, strawberry and pear drops.
- Malolactic is generally avoided: it would soften the bright acidity and leave the wine less aromatic.
What two appellation rules say
- In Alsace, rosés come from Pinot Noir, the only listed grape for that colour; Coliris, Nebbiolo and Syrah are allowed there under agreement.
- Alsace rosés have a yield of their own: 75 hl/ha, against 80 for whites (up to 100 by variety) and 60 for reds.
- Côtes de Provence makes mostly rosé. Clairette, Semillon, Ugni Blanc and Vermentino are capped together at 20% of the red and rosé plantings.
To learn it in depth
Related reading
Sources (4)
- Official sourceQuelques clés d'élaboration des vins rosés — fiche pratique— Institut français de la vigne et du vin (IFV)
- Official sourceCahier des charges de l'appellation d'origine contrôlée « Côtes de Provence »— Institut national de l'origine et de la qualité (INAO) / Ministère de l'agriculture
- Official sourceCahier des charges de l'appellation d'origine contrôlée « Alsace » ou « Vin d'Alsace »— Institut national de l'origine et de la qualité (INAO)
- Official sourceFermentation malolactique — fiche pratique— Institut français de la vigne et du vin (IFV)