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As if Champagne doesn't feel
decadent enough, the rosé
style seems to generate an
extra rush of adrenalin in the
bloodstream. Whether it's
vintage or non-vintage, dry
or sweet, bronze or pink, rosé Champagne
is a guaranteed hit, delivering that extra little
layer of luxury and summeriness.
The dry and non-vintage combination
might be the most common style around, but
all pink Champagne has been popular in the
past decade or so thanks to our noughties'
love a air with rosé wine in general. And this
boom in popularity
has sparked renewed
interest in rosé by the
Champagne houses
themselves. Rather
than prioritising other
styles - the money-making Brut non-vintage,
the wine trade's darling Blanc de Blancs,
or the celebrity-loved prestige cuvée - in
recent years pink Champagne has been taken
more seriously by its makers and quality has
improved as a result.
Blush blends
Improved quality makes its higher price an
easier pill to swallow, but the extra skill that's
involved in making it has to be factored in
too. After all, rosé Champagne is normally
made by blending red wine into alreadymade
white Champagne, and the amount of
red wine needs to be very carefully managed
or it could throw a Champagne's delicate
taste equilibrium out of kilter. The red wine
that is used is also made in the Champagne
region, and the village of Bouzy is especially
famous for its role in producing red wine for
pink Champagne. This method is unique to
Champagne, as the region holds the rights
to produce the only pink wine in the EU that
can be blended for colour, so we're probably
paying a little bit extra for exclusivity as well.
Champagne can also be made pink in the
same way as other rosé wines, by bleeding
the pigment out of the red grape's skin, a
method called saignée. Usually all three
of Champagne's main grapes are used:
Chardonnay, Pinot Noir and Pinot Meunier.
But sometimes only the red grapes (Pinot
Noir and Pinot Meunier) are used, producing a
style called blanc de noirs. A few Champagne
producers prefer the saignée technique,
thinking it's a more holistic approach, but
ultimately no-one can categorically state
whether one way is better than the other.
The renewed interest in pink Champagne
in the region itself has sparked healthy debate
over the years about the shade and intensity
of its colour. The classic hue is like a still rosé
from Provence - a shade known as 'pale
salmon' or 'onion skin' - but some houses
have gone more pink than bronze in recent
years in a shameless bid to appeal to the
biggest category of pink drinkers: women.
However, Christian Holthausen, export
With rosé wine more popular than ever, it's no surprise that
the Champagne houses are putting some serious e ort into
their own styles, which is good news for pink � zz lovers
WORDS JANE PARKINSON ILLUSTRATION SUSAN BURGHART
coming up
rosés
The renewed interest in rosé has
sparked debate over the colour
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