In March 2004, Jancis Robinson MW confessed her bewilderment at the continuing vogue for pink Champagne, despite its “often dire” quality. Yet 10 years on, this style, which used to be no more than a very fleeting fad, is more popular than ever.
The last vogue for Champagne rosé was in the mid-1980s and was created by one man, Allan Cheesman, when he selected Charbaut to supply the U.K. supermarket Sainsbury’s with a Champagne rosé for its own-label range.
| “The firms that do make pink Champagne seldom serve it to their guests.... Indeed, pink Champagne, in the Champagne district, is considered somewhat of a question délicate, and is best avoided." - Patrick Forbes, MD Moet UK, (1967) |
Cheesman suggested to his marketing people that they should emphasize the fact that this particular Champagne had been made by saignée method, where naturally colored juice is bled off the black grapes and fermented, in contrast to the more widely used method of blending in a little red wine to create the desired color. The marketers put their muscle behind it and the wine was a runaway success.
It sparked a trend for rosé and the Champagne industry thought it was onto such a winner that it began boosting production. But the problem with Champagne is that it requires such a long lead time. In 1989, just as the cheapest, youngest new batch of pink Champagne began trickling onto the market, demand began to stall and by 1991, when everyone was ready to release the increased volume, a recession had hit, sales evaporated, and the Champenois were left with huge stocks of rosé that gradually turned orange and unsaleable.
By the late '90s, sales of rosé had plummeted. Gradually sales crept up so that by 2004, when Robinson wrote her piece, rosé wines made up 5 per cent of total sales and now they are 10 percent. At first the Champenois were wary but, after 17 years, I think it is safe to say that Champagne rosé is experiencing more than a temporary peak in sales. Almost every producer has at least one rosé in its range. Pink is no longer a fad.
Improvements
One advantage of rosé becoming a permanent feature is that it has given the Champenois an opportunity to improve the production process. When rosé was an occasional whim, not only did most producers look no further than their standard, pre-prepared brut cuvée to color up, they also just grabbed the nearest Coteaux Champenois red to do the job.
Furthermore, since very few houses made their own red wine, most were left with no alternative but to purchase red wines through the region's brokerage system. As the production of Champagne rosé increased, so the price of red wine jumped and, with more demand than supply, speculative producers joined the fray, causing quality to decline.
Even long-standing suppliers within Champagne’s bulk-wine market produced sub-standard reds that generally had insufficient color, questionable aromatics and too much tannin. As demand continued, the uncertainty of supply and influx of increasingly less-desirable red wine from speculators galvanized the larger players to invest in their own dedicated red winemaking facilities.
Interestingly, the first red winemaking facilities came on stream in 2004, the very year that Robinson complained of Champagne rosé’s “often dire” quality.
Which is best?
How many times do we read that blending a little red wine into a white is illegal for the production of most rosés throughout the E.U. or that the saignée or maceration method of making Champagne rosé is somehow intrinsically superior?
The inference is that because blending is illegal it must be wrong and thus inferior, but that in itself infers that all E.U. regulations are intrinsically correct or, at the very least, sensible. Both maceration and blending methods can make rosés that are light or deep colored, rich or delicate, and can show great finesse or a rustic character. Neither method has any intrinsic advantage, but in my experience there are far more color, phenolic and oxidative issues in rosés that have been produced by some form of mass maceration.
| Best Rosé Tip: As many rosés are sold in clear glass bottles to show off their color, never buy any bottle that is on the shelf, as light, especially fluorescent light, can degrade methionine (found naturally in wine) into nasty-smelling dimethyldisulphide in just 60 minutes. Always make sure your bottle has never been removed from its carton. |
Why is Champagne rosé disproportionately expensive?
There are additional costs to be borne by producers ring-fencing lower-yielding vines and developing red winemaking facilities, but whatever excuses along these lines you read, that is all they are. The premiums were in place prior to those developments.
The truth is that following the implosion of the market in 1991, many Champenois put a premium on their sales of Champagne rosé to cover the cost of being left with stock. Currently the difference in cost is roughly 20 percent for non-vintage and anywhere between 50 and 100 percent for iconic prestige cuvées. Initially, it was a simple, precautionary business decision and, if the public wanted rosé under those conditions, they would have to be prepared to pay for it, which they obviously were.
Now, however, after 17 years of steadily growing sales, the Champagne rosé market is no longer the risk it once was and arguably the premiums are no longer warranted, but they will never disappear. Anyone who imagines that any business trying to build and enhance the current and future reputation of its wines (whether it is a Champagne house, Gaja in Piemonte or Screaming Eagle in California) is going to drop its prices once it has established a secure foothold in the market is not living in the real world.
Six of the best
Best prestige Champagne rosé:
2002 Dom Pérignon Rosé Brut A lovely melange of coffee, chocolate and toast, building on exquisitely mellow mandarin fruit.
2002 Deutz Cuvée William Deutz Rosé Brut Very pale, with gorgeous fruit and finesse. Not just delicious, but classy too.
2002 Roederer Cristal Rosé Beautiful pale-peach color, with crisp Chardonnay-underlaid Pinot fruit on the palate and a very silky, long finish.
The greatest non-vintage Champagne rosé:
Charles Heidsieck Brut Rosé Réserve Very pale, almost old gold color, with lovely toasty aromas and deliciously fresh yet mellow, crystallized orchard fruit flavors, and a lovely, low-pressure, silky mousse.
Best boutique producer Champagne rosé:
Dosnon & Lepage Récolte Rosé Very pale pink-gold color with lifted strawberry aromas. Made for drinking, not keeping and nothing wrong with that.
Bruno Paillard Première Cuvée Brut Rosé Very, very pale old-gold color with flecks of platinum. Youthful aromas are reflected on the palate. Will be twice the wine if kept just 6-18 months.