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Rose wines are often referred to by their drinkers as summer wines due to their light, crisp, refreshing characters making them ideal for summer drinking, but are often referred to by wine aficionados as a poor relative of the red wine!

Rose Wine, from the French: rosé, meaning ‘pinkish’, is a wine that is nearly always made from red varietals (there are a couple of exceptions) It goes through the same process as red winemaking where the grapes are pressed and the juice sits with the skins, but in this case only for a day or two, to get a little bit of the reddish colouring and a small amount of the skin characteristics like tannin. The skins are then discarded, unlike with red wines, and fermentation continues as a white wine, often in stainless steel tanks.

Styles vary widely across the world, but in general, a Rose wine is much simpler than a true red or white wine, even if it is made from the same grapes.
European Rose wines are generally dry, while Rose wines from USA are generally medium to sweet. Sometimes, this distinction is highlighted by referring to medium or sweet Rose wines as Blush.

Popular blush Rose wines include the Zinfandel blush from California and the Pinot Grigio blush from Italy.

The Zinfandel, widely regarded as indigenous to California, is usually a result from a technique known as ‘bleeding’ or ‘Saignée’ where the vintner removes some of the juice that he is producing red wine from and ferments this juice separately. The end result is a fresh rose wine and a much fuller, deeper red wine. Two wines from the same batch; slightly different process resulting in a different taste and style.

The Italian Pinot Grigio Rose wine is produced in a light style with a lovely pink colour which actually comes from the Pinot Grigio skins which are naturally pink in colour. These rose wines have been enjoyed by Italians for many years and are becoming increasingly popular in the UK, due to their easy drinking style and summer fruit flavours.

Love it or loathe it (and judging by its recent gain in popularity) the Rose wine is here to stay and with some excellent examples from top wine producing countries like Italy, Australia, New Zealand and USA, there are some truly great rose wines just waiting to be discovered.