What Is Rose Champagne?

Video Transcript

"Let's get to even the most versatile of the champagnes, and those are the roses. Just like the other champagnes, you may have a non-vintage rose; you may have a vintage rose and you may even have something that's a prestige cuvee that actually is another level above that. Perhaps it's from a single vineyard, perhaps it gets a certain different type of vinification (meaning it gets a little bit more hand-crafting and more care). But in this case, we've got a rose from France. Now, it is a champagne, which means it's from the Champagne region. Nicolas Feuillatte is the producer. In this case it is a rose, and it doesn't have a vintage on it. So we know that it's a mixed vintage or a non-vintage. There are two ways to make rose, however. Now as I said, you've got Pinot Noir which is a red grape. And you can do one of two things; you can either take white wine and red wine and mix them together; or you can use another method called "sanet" which means "to bleed." And what that means, is that they allow the red grapes (once they are crushed) to remain in contact with the skins until it picks up the blush. Now, we think of "blush" here in the United States from white zinfandel and the blush wines of the 80's and 90's as sweet wines. But these are absolutely bone dry and very crisp and very refreshing. But the one difference between a rose and brut or a blanc de blanc (which would always have a little bit of chardonnay, if not a lot of chardonnay, or a blanc de blanc is all chardonnay...but the brutes have a little bit of chardonnay and a little bit of pinot in them) is that with the roses, they are looking for that richer flavor. So now you've got a wine that is extremely versatile with all kinds of different food. It's crisp enough to match with fish. It will work with white meats; pork and chicken. But it also works very well with red meat, whether it's duck or beef or lamb. It really works very, very well."