In South Africa rosé and blanc de noir are not generally taken seriously – volumes and prices are low, and most wine-drinkers would rather be seen downing brandy and cola.... Are the prejudices valid? Cathy van Zyl investigates the various methods of producing a pink wine and reports on a sampling of some of the Cape’s better examples.

There are those who claim that a wine’s first duty is to be red, but most wine-producing countries ignore them. Pink wines have controlled appellations across Europe (even within such prestigious areas as Bordeaux and Burgundy), and in the New World too, rosés blush prolifically and profitably.

Wines that are neither red nor white go by a variety of names – blanc de noir, rosé and vin gris being just some of the French terms; weissherbst and schillerwein in Germany; blush in Australia and America; oeil de perdrix (partridge eye) in Switzerland; rosado or clarete in Spain, depending on the wine’s colour intensity and the similar styling rosato and chiaretto in Portugal – whose Mateus Rosé and Lancers, in their hey-day, were leading global brands.

Different winemaking processes can be used to make rosé, including filtration – through carbon, for example – to remove some colour from a red wine. But the two most common methods are blending red and white wines, and taking the juice of red grapes off the skins once it has picked up the right amount of colour through maceration. The latter is usually the method for better quality rosés – the significant exception being champagne, where many quality producers elect to make rosé champagnes by blending some red wine into the white base.

An increasingly common and important sub-group within the maceration wines is those produced by the saignée (bleeding) technique. While South African (and other) rosés are frequently made from grapes with insufficient potential to make good reds, some are now, paradoxically made as a by-product of a producer’s flagship. Running off, or bleeding, juice from newly crushed grapes will increase the proportion of skins to juice in what is left behind – thus aiding the development of a deeply coloured, concentrated grand vin. The other bonus is a rosé made from the highest quality grapes.

Several local wine makers scoff at the idea of saignée, wondering why there would be a need to concentrate further the super-ripe grapes most of our vineyards are capable of producing. But, points out Asara winemaker Jan van Rooyen, many are doing it without saying they do. ‘These guys may not have a saignée rosé on their lists but that’s only because they’ll sell off the pink as bulk wine to someone needing to fill a large production run’, he suggests. Apart from Asara, other examples of saignée rosés in our lineup were Jason’s Hill, Nelson’s Creek, Buitenverwachting and Sumaridge.

Blanc (?) de noir

If pink wines can be made from black grapes, so too can white. Meaning ‘white (wine) from black (grapes)’, blancs de noir traditionally do not undergo maceration, as the usual aim is wines light in colour and alcohol. The juice is separated from the colour-bearing skins before more than the tiniest bit of pigment infuses it. Key examples are blanc de noir champagnes from France and (at a generally vastly different quality level), the white zinfandels that became important in California at a time when white wine ruled.

In South Africa the term is really a misnomer, as the wines it graces are often light pink rather than virginal white. It seems that some wine marketers in the late 1980s started referring to their dry pink wines made from black grapes as blancs de noir to differentiate them from the mainly sweet rosés which had started to acquire a most unfashionable and unsophisticated image.

Our tasting panel admitted to seldom drinking rosés, but was able to name a broad spectrum of local producers making them. The tasters agreed that pink wines have a poor image among more discerning drinkers, who expect them to be mostly sweet, lacking structure and mouthfeel, and uninteresting. Rosés, they confirmed, were seen as sweet and blanc de noirs as dry. The confusion about levels of residual sugar is clearly significant – a wine labelled rosé could be sweet, semi-sweet or dry, an uncertainty which would inhibit purchases.

Perhaps it is time to re-investigate these wines. Veteran winemaker Hermann Kirschbaum of Buitenverwachting believes consumption of pink wine is on the up. Why not? he asks. Pink wine is fun, different and if fermented dry, nice to consume in summer with picnic lunches or sushi dinners as an alternative to chardonnay, sauvignon blanc or a white blend. He cautions, however, that, given the global trend towards preferring drier wines, those winemakers leaning towards a sweeter style could alienate potential consumers.

Asara’s Jan van Rooyen agrees, suggesting that rosés are particularly suited to local summers, and therefore have a place in the wine cellar and on our shelves. His own wine is dry (2.2 g/l residual sugar) and he wants it drunk by all: the days of rosé being a ‘ladies’ wine because of its sweetness are over, he says. (One imagines that the tastes of ‘the ladies’ have also changed – or perhaps just the misrepresentation of them has!) Many wineries are going to considerable lengths to make a drier wine with greater consumer appeal, and they should be supported, Jan adds.

The tasting

On the whole, the saignée rosés were described as having more complexity on both the nose and the palate, greater weight and better structure. However, it was difficult to distinguish them from those not claiming to be bled off better quality grapes. Kleine Hazen Blanc de Noir was quickly pinpointed as a typical example of this technique because of its very light colour and low alcohol. The wine is made from the press juice of the pinot noir used for Hazendal’s bubbly. Picked early, the grapes destined for Cap Classique are usually less ripe in terms of sugar, and have less flavour and colour concentration. By contrast, the Seidelberg, from muscat and pinotage, was easily identified as a wine made by blending white and red finished wine thanks to its strong muscat bouquet.

Overall, the panel was satisfied with the quality of the wines presented and their ratings concur in the main with those in the 2003 Platter Guide. Tasters felt that steps being taken to improve the quality of pink wine locally were paying off and that the category deserves more credit than it is given, particularly in terms of value for money: the price of the wines tasted ranged between under R20 to R38.50. John Weaver provided a useful closing summary, with his comment that the better of the pink wines tasted ‘are serious wines but should be drunk light-heartedly’. Surely just what the winemakers intended.

The wines ranked

***
Sumaridge Dry Rose
(R25) (dry; mostly pinot noir, pinotage)

Asara Rosé 2001
(R25) (dry; saignée; cabernet, merlot, shiraz)

**(*)

Buitenverwachting Blanc de Noir
(R28) (just off-dry; saignée; from merlot, cabernets sauvignon and franc)

Spring Valley Dry Rosé 2001
(R19.50) (dry; saignée; from pinotage)

**

Boschendal Blanc de Noir (R27.50) (just off-dry; mainly pinot noir, merlot)

Ashanti Sunset Blush Dry Rosé (R28) (dry; from cabernet sauvignon and pinotage)

Nelson’s Creek Merlot Rosé (R26) (just off-dry; saignée; from merlot)

Jason’s Hill Rosé Merlot Pinotage

(R22) (just off-dry; saignée; from merlot, pinotage, shiraz)

*

Bellingham Rosé
(under R20) (dry; from cinsaut and pinotage)

Kleine Hazen Blanc de Noir
(R21) (just off-dry, from pinot noir)

Seidelberg Rosé
(R38.50) (dry; from muscat and pinotage)

All vintages are 2002 except where indicated. Prices are ex-farm. The wines were tasted blind.

Tasters

Monty Friendship Wine journalist and collector

Rona Friendship Formerly of the Cape Wine Academy

Ingrid Motteux Grape

Ina Smith Cape Wine Master student

John Weaver Experienced consumer

Philip van Zyl Editor, John Platter SA Wine Guide

The John Platter South African Wine Guide 2003 lists 25 dry and 43 sweet rosés, and 27 blancs de noir – a total of 95 of which around 20 were new, with several claiming to be ‘saignée’ wines.

Unfortunately, official industry statistical practice only distinguishes between white and red wines and incorporates pink wine production figures with those of red wine – so it is difficult to determine the pink proportion of South African wine production. Some producers provide production figures. Boschendal and Sumaridge, for example, claim that 10% of the wine they make is pink while others such as Seidelberg and Buitenverwachting limit theirs to 1%.

Winemaker Hermann Kirschbaum chuckles when he tells why Buitenverwachting’s 2002 Blanc de Noir is a special blend. His (‘top-notch’) assistant Jacques Moelans was responsible for the wine and, rushing off to a dental appointment, instructed the cellar hands to blend together, while he was gone, two tanks he’d identified. But in his haste he had attached one of his labels to the cellar’s best tank of red wine – only 900 litres, but its pride and joy, destined for a special bottling. ‘Followers of Buitenverwachting Blanc de Noir will have noticed its deeper colour and bigger structure this year’, says Kirschbaum a touch ruefully. ‘We were disappointed to lose our special cuvée but that’s life. I’m really enjoying the Blanc de Noir!’