IS THE COLOR OF ROSÉ WINE AN INDICATOR OF ITS QUALITY?

Rosé is appreciated for its wide range of different colors. Infinite shades: from the pale color that could be confused with white to the most intense.

Is the color of a wine only  an indicator of its quality?

Color has its importance, it must be analyzed. However the color does not represent an indicator of the quality of the wine.

Several parameters have an impact on the color of the wine such as the variety used, the agronomic techniques, the winemaking techniques.

A grape variety can have more anthocyanins than the other. This means that wines obtained by this variety  will have a more intense color than others. The same happens for the winemaking method. Longer macerations will extract more colors from the grapes. Rosé obtained from saignéè will have more intense colors than rosé obtained by short maceration.

What is the reason  to produce rosé with lighter colors, where historically the grapes have always produced rosé with more intense colors?

This myth is due to the fact that Provence is the most famous region in the world for the production of rosé wine and the colors of these wines are very soft and pale.

• This is for the varieties used, white grapes and red grapes together;
• For the winemaking method that follows direct pressing or short maceration and as a consequence you will have wines with pale colors.

Provence is synonymous with quality, their wines are awarded.
For this reason, as Provencal colors are  pale, winemaker all over the world tend to copy these colors because in the consumer’s mind pale  rosé means good rosé.

This is not true! Indeed in the long term it can damage producers and appellations.
Cerasuolo d’Abruzzo is one of the best pink wines in Italy and the color is reminiscent of cherries. A color that can easily be mistaken for that of a red wine.

What would happen if we started making pale rosé in Abruzzo? Its identity would fail.  In the short term, sales may increase because the bug of inexperienced consumers who see the light-colored rosé as the only quality rosé is exploited, but in the long term it damages the production area and one’s own wine.
The consumer is changing, he wants to discover and wants to know the stories and production processes of a wine.

Changing the color of a wine, making it clearer with the help of strong filtrations and enological additives can also change the taste of the wine.

The color of a rosé,  very attractive, tells us very little about the quality of the wine. A rosé produced in Provence will be different from a rosé produced in Salento or South Africa. And it does not mean that one is better than the other.