Since I've been talking about rosé wines so much recently, I thought I'd explain one of the terms directly related to this juicy pink pleasure: saignée.
Rosé wines are made three ways, typically:
- Blending white and red wines together
- Skin contact with the grape juice is allowed for a short time only, after which the skins are discarded
- Saignée
Saignée
Saignée is a French word derived from the verb saigner, which means to bleed.
A winemaker will run off (bleed) a portion of juice after limited contact between the skins and juice of just-crushed dark-skinned (black/red/purple) grapes. Because of this limited contact, the juice that is bled off becomes a wine lighter in colour and structure than its remaining sister red wine made from the rest of the juice.
The many colours of rosé range from light orange and salmon
to pale pink, rose, and magenta
It's interesting to note that many people in the wine world believe that the best rosé wines are made using the saignée method. I won't make any such proclamation, however, because I still have so many rosés to try.
Cheers to you!
Copyright © 2011 Kathleen Rake. All rights reserved.
