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The four routes to rosé

Direct press, short maceration, saignée and blending — what each does to colour, structure and purpose.

The short answer

Rosé is made by direct pressing, by a short maceration, by bleeding juice off a red fermentation, or — for sparkling wine, where it is permitted — by blending red wine into white. Each gives a different colour and a different structural result.

Overview

Colour depth is a consequence of method and intention, not a quality signal, and the pale Provençal style became dominant through fashion rather than through merit.

The methods are not equally common: short maceration accounts for most serious still rosé, and saignée is as much a red-wine decision as a rosé one.

Step by step

  1. 1 Direct pressing

    Black grapes pressed immediately, taking up only the colour extracted during pressing itself. Gives the palest wines, and the fruit is grown and picked specifically for rosé.

  2. 2 Short maceration

    Juice held on skins for a few hours to a day before being drawn off. The most controllable method and the most widely used for wines made as rosé from the outset.

  3. 3 Saignée

    Bleeding a proportion of juice off a red fermentation, concentrating what remains. The rosé is a by-product, and it typically shows more colour and more structure than a purpose-made one.

  4. 4 Blending

    Adding red wine to white. Prohibited for still rosé in the EU; permitted for sparkling, and a normal and long-established way of making rosé Champagne.

What people get wrong

1 widely repeated claim this page corrects.

Depends

“Rosé is just red wine and white wine blended.”

For still rosé in the EU, blending red and white wine is prohibited. For sparkling rosé it is permitted, and rosé Champagne is frequently made exactly that way.

Sources

Sources consulted

More in winemaking

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Fermentation

Yeast converting sugar into alcohol and carbon dioxide — the step that makes wine wine.

Winemaking

How red wine is made

Fermenting grape juice in contact with the skins, which is where colour and tannin come from.

Winemaking

How white wine is made

Pressing the juice off the skins before fermentation, then fermenting the clear juice.