Marqués de Riscal, Rioja, Rosado/Rosé

This Rosé comes from one of the great historical wineries of the world. The winery is very proud of it and rather romantically declares that this refreshing Rosé is "... as if summer were a wine." 

A classical Rosé colouring, this is just a half-shade darker than the trendy Provençal Rosés on account of the grapes used and the fact that is comes from Rioja, which means that the colour is truly authentic! The nose is attractive and engaging, with intense flavours of strawberry and raspberry with notes of orange blossom. It has a soft, smooth mouth-feel, balanced by supporting acidity, a medium body and a long, fresh finish.

Marqués de Riscal has produced this outstanding Rosé for over 60 years. Made from Tempranillo, Viura, Malvasia and white Garnacha, this is the product of the young vines of the estate. The impressive part of this is that the wine has almost precocious levels of quality in its delicacy, freshness, intensity and balance. You'd normally expect to pay much more for a wine of this calibre, even in Rosé, and the fact that it is made from younger parcels of vines is very impressive.

Saignée method wines are my favourite Rosés as I always feel it takes a bit more skill, when it's done well, and you get more of the grapey qualities from the red varieties. That's what I feel! Saignée means that the wine takes its colour from the skins of the grapes, rather than by blending the wines together after they have been made (a bit of red dropped into some white...? no thanks). This Rosé is made in that way and after a few hours of maceration (skin contact) between the red grapes and the juice, the wine is run off and fermented in temperature-controlled stainless steel vats. This is important as it allows Riscal's winemaking team to adjust the temperature, obviously, which then has a direct impact on the aromatic complexity and flavour profile of the wine; and this is important because with a load of Spanish red grape varieties fermenting away, the risk is that the flavours become to heavy and intense: this way, they are able to create a more elegant and delicately aromatic wine, still with lovely naturally medium-full body, but with no risk of being out of balance.