French Rose Producers Furious withNew Euro Standards
Rose has gotten a bad rap over the years, mostly thanks to saccharine sweet varieties produced for cheap coming out of California. But for French enthusiasts, making a fine rose is an art form perfected over hundreds of years. In recent times, the pale wines have seen somewhat of a resurgence, taking over roughly 10% of the sales market and even surpassing their white counterparts in popularity in France.
To meet the growing desire for rose around the globe, the EU recently announced plans to modify their regulations or making it. The main idea? The new rules will allow vintners to create rose artificially by mixing red and white wine, rather than the far more subtle and difficult process currently used in France. Needless to say, those vineyards who specialize in making rose in the traditional fashion are more than a little upset about the turn of events. The AFP released an excellent article on the subject earlier this month.
From the AFP:
Rose's distinctive pink hue comes from a special technique. Red grape skins are crushed and left in contact with the macerating white juice for a few hours, long enough to gently tint the wine, then removed. But the European Commission believes fiddly EU rules on how to make rose are holding French, Italian and Spanish producers back in new export markets, including China. It has adopted a draft trade ruling, to be put to the vote by EU members next month, that would allow wine merchants to mix red with a splash of white, and bottle the result as rose -- heresy as far as France is concerned.
To meet the growing desire for rose around the globe, the EU recently announced plans to modify their regulations or making it. The main idea? The new rules will allow vintners to create rose artificially by mixing red and white wine, rather than the far more subtle and difficult process currently used in France. Needless to say, those vineyards who specialize in making rose in the traditional fashion are more than a little upset about the turn of events. The AFP released an excellent article on the subject earlier this month.
From the AFP:
Rose's distinctive pink hue comes from a special technique. Red grape skins are crushed and left in contact with the macerating white juice for a few hours, long enough to gently tint the wine, then removed. But the European Commission believes fiddly EU rules on how to make rose are holding French, Italian and Spanish producers back in new export markets, including China. It has adopted a draft trade ruling, to be put to the vote by EU members next month, that would allow wine merchants to mix red with a splash of white, and bottle the result as rose -- heresy as far as France is concerned.
posted by My Wine News | 8:17 AM
1 Comments:
For those who don't know what a rose wine is, I found the definition (I didn't know.)
A rosé wine has some of the color typical of a red wine, but only enough to turn it pink. The pink color can range from a pale orange to a vivid near-purple, depending on the grapes and wine making techniques.
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