Rosé Wines

Rosé is a dry, off dry or sweet red wine. The colour can range from light pink to quite vividly so, depending on how much skin contact is allowed with the juice post crushing.

Often but not always. Rosé can be anything from bone dry to super sweet.

Pretty much always. Because Rosé is made with limited skin contact it doesn’t contain much tannin. This means the wine won’t become bitter or astringent when chilled.

If the Rosé is sweet, it will work well with dishes containing heat by way of spice. Dry and light Rosé work well with goats cheese, pasta, rice dishes and seafood. Medium bodied dry Rosé can work with paella and grilled meats, including chicken and beef.

Once opened, generally, no more than a day. After that the aromatics and flavours will dull.

If the bottle is unopened, in theory as long as you like. That said, wine doesn’t like vibration, including that generated by household fridge compressors. Vibration is reputed to decrease some types of acid and esters which in turn will dull aromatics and flavours. It can also increase the amount of propanol which will dull the wine and increase the level of isoamyl alcohol which may make the wine taste sweeter. Not a biggie if you whack the wine in the fridge and don’t get to it for a week but you don’t want to use the fridge for ‘cellaring’. Wine specific fridges typically have an external and/or specialist compressor.