Rose Wine

Direct press treats red grapes much like white ones. They go to the press soon after picking, pick up a few hours of colour at most, and give a pale, delicate wine. Saignee works the other way round, bleeding off a portion of free-run juice from a red must shortly after crushing. That juice has taken more colour and more grip with it, so a saignee rose looks darker and feels firmer. The two also differ in intent. Direct press sets out to make rose from the start, while saignee began as a way of concentrating the red left behind in the fermenter.

Pale pink tells you nothing about sweetness, and neither does a deeper shade. Colour follows from the grape variety, from how many hours the juice sat with the skins, and from whether the cellar was aiming at a pale southern French look or something with more substance. Grenache and Cinsaut tend towards lighter colour. Pinotage, Syrah and Merlot bring more of it. Judge the style off the back label instead.

Tipping a finished red into a white is not how still rose is generally made, and in several major wine regions the practice is not permitted at all. The colour is expected to come out of the skins during production. Sparkling rose is the recognised exception, and blending a measure of red wine into the base before the second fermentation is standard practice for it in a number of regions.

Usually not any longer, because the dry, pale style associated with southern France reset what shoppers expect. Sweeter pink wines still exist and are normally labelled plainly as semi-sweet.

Treat it like a white and drink it young, since aroma and freshness fade across a year or two. Pale wine often comes in clear glass, which offers no protection, so keep the bottle out of direct sun.

Rose sits between a white and a light red, which makes it useful with food that defeats both. Grilled prawns, tomato salad and cured meat all work. On a hot afternoon it drinks better than a red, and it has more weight than most whites, so a table serving both fish and meat is no problem. Serve it properly cold.