French Rose wine details

The difficult balance between color and roundness

The majority of grapes are black with white juice; only the film is colored.  The qualities of “fruity” and, especially, “roundness in the mouth” are obtained through a pre-fermentation maceration, and then in aqueous conditions, and the harvest, which can selectively extract some dandruff compounds (aroma precursors, polysaccharides, etc.).

This maceration also supports a broadcast to the grape anthocyanins responsible for the color of grapes and therefore wine. The winemaker must therefore strike the right balance between the desired color for the finished wine and the flavor profile (roundness, perception acid, etc.) from the same wine.

Among the factors that determine this balance, the temperature of the grapes is a powerful lever for control of diffusion of the film to the juice. Thus early harvest when the weather is cool is most often the rule, particularly in southern regions like Provence.
In summary, for the desired wine, the winemaker will have to find the best compromise between:
the level of maturity to which the color of the potential harvest has reached, the temperature of the harvest, which determines the rate of diffusion of dandruff compounds, and the duration of the pre-fermentation maceration, which determines the intensity of these same phenomena.
Methods for obtaining juices

The pink wine can be made according to two main principles: bleeding and direct pressing.
Bleeding

Historically, some of the juice from the vatting reds was removed in order to increase the concentration thereof, by simply increasing the solid to liquid ratio. In this case, the elements of the film broadcast to a smaller amount of juice, and the red wine obtained is more “full bodied”.
This technique is suitable for wineries little specialized in the development of roses and has several disadvantages.

The first disadvantage is that the juice is also sweeter, so the pink is often “alcohol” developed, that is to say that it has a “burning” characteristic and the related strong-tasting alcoholic strength by volume obtained after fermentation. On the other hand, a high maturity of the harvest is generally sought for the development of red as the color and quality of tannins are often higher, which further accentuates the problem for the development of roses from bleeding these same vessels.
Another disadvantage is the maceration and the juice that is made can be more colorful, which is not compatible with the style of some current rose wines.  Also, the extraction efficiency is limited, and a maximum of around 20% of the collected juice does not have a specialized rose to the level of a full cellar.
The principle of “bleeding” is perpetuated in the pink regions oriented by the use of “tanks techniques” called “drains” (made by Fabbri or Elite, for example) in which the winemaker can mace vie rate the grapes, taking more or less time depending upon the goal. In practice the time is between two and twenty hours. These tanks are used to extract up to 60% juice, especially if the harvest is enzyme. It can also serve as a buffer vessel to absorb the inflow of harvesting, which may be supported in the case of mechanical harvesting, until the presses are available.
Direct Pressing

This is the technique most often used for making modern roses. With direct pressing, the harvest is directly discharged into the juicer so that maceration lasts only for the time of filling. The extraction is then launched through a cycle in which successive phases of pressure levels increase gradually, alternating with phases during which the membrane collapses when the tank press makes some rotations.
Depending on the color of juice and drinking quality desired (tannic increases progressively with the aggressiveness of pressing), these juices will be retained or not; this is called “splitting” juice pressing. They can be vinified separately and subject to special treatment as collages and then be introduced into the assemblies according to taste.
The discontinuous presses currently require an organization of construction to the harvest in order to maximize the flow of grapes to the pressing workshop, which must also be sized accordingly.

As for making white wines, the pink must obtained by bleeding or direct pressing must be clarified before fermentation in the settling. This step is essential if one wants to get a fruity and aromatic rose wine, one that from a net perspective is odorless or without the unpleasant sulfur. The level of racking looking for a pink wine is between 50 and 200 NTU. Below this level and there is risk of difficult alcoholic fermentation and an increased chance the wine would lack “roundness in the mouth;” above the level, clarification is insufficient to achieve the objectives of aromatic finesse wine.
The simplest technique of settling is a static settling of juice, most often after an enzymic to hydrolyze pectic compounds that interfere with the spontaneous clarification. A cool temperature (10 to 14°C) facilitates the settling of the lees and reduces the development of contaminants that may trigger a spontaneous fermentation, though undesirable at this point.

Similarly, sulfite and hygiene are involved in the control of contaminants. The sediment lees in the tank bottom can then be filtered on rotary vacuum filters or filter presses to be reincorporated into the clear juice before fermentation.