Pinot Noir Rosé

Pinot Noir makes rosé in two quite different registers, and the split runs along the border between still and sparkling.

In Champagne it is the backbone of rosé Champagne, which is unusual among the world's rosés in that it may legally be made by blending finished red wine into white before the second fermentation. Everywhere else in the European Union this is forbidden; in Champagne it is standard practice, and a small addition of still red from Bouzy or Ambonnay gives colour, red-fruit aroma and a little grip. The alternative, rosé de saignée, takes colour from skin contact instead and produces a deeper, more vinous and usually more structured wine.

As a still rosé, Pinot Noir gives one of the most delicate expressions of the category. The thin skins yield colour readily, so extraction has to be brief, and the result is pale salmon with redcurrant, wild strawberry, citrus peel and a savoury, faintly earthy edge that separates it from the softer Mediterranean styles. Acidity is high, which makes it unusually good with food and lets the better examples hold for two or three years rather than the single season most rosé allows.

Burgundy makes small quantities, chiefly in the Marsannay appellation at the northern tip of the Côte de Nuits, which is the only Burgundian village with an appellation covering rosé. Germany and Alsace have their own traditions, and cool-climate producers in Oregon, New Zealand and Tasmania have taken it up precisely because the acidity survives.

It is a rosé that behaves like a light red — better at cellar temperature than ice cold, and better at the table than on its own.