Stumped again...any French readers?

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David Erickson

David Erickson
Opened a lovely Jacques Copinet Brut Rosé last night. Looking at the Copinet web site this morning, I read the following:

"Rosé issu d’un 100 % chardonnay. Le Rosé est issu de l'assemblage de vin blanc et rouge de Champagne, afin d'obtenir une couleur identique au fil du temps. Cette cuvée a été mise en bouteille blanche, laissant le champagne dévoiler sa couleur."

"Composition : vin de base 100% chardonnay + ajout de vin rouge environ 20% pour le couleur."

I give up. How can they say they're making Rose from 100% Chardonnay, then say they're adding up to 20% red wine?
 
fairst yoo add zee whayet whine, like zeess, you know? Zen you hadd zee raid whine, and zen--voila! you know?
Eet eez sooo seempel!!
 
Due to the devaluation of the Euro, it now takes 120% composition to complete a wine. That's the only way they could justify keeping the price in dollars constant. You are getting more wine for the same money.
 
If one reads sympathetically, trying to figure out what they wanted to say rather than what they did say, I think they mean that the white part of the wine--which is the main part--is entirely Chardonnay (as opposed to other cepages used in Champagne). That's why they say vin de base. They then add in some red wine for color (though they don't say what cepage).

The part that confuses me is that there was a big deal in France a couple of years ago when the European Union wanted to allow Rose to be made this way (mixing white and red) as opposed to making it from controlled skin contact. My memory was that the rules against this practice ultimately stayed on the books. Do they not apply to Champagne?
 
originally posted by Sharon Bowman:
Nope. Only appellation in which it's allowed.
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Absolutely and AFAIK always has been although rose champagne is also made using the saignee method. The description above definitely sounds, as already suggested, like a Chardonnay base with a 20% equivalent addition of a red [presumably a Pinot] wine

My only puzzle with the wine being described is that the only reference I have previously seen to it had it a Chardonnay/Pinot Noir wine
see spec sheet HERE http://chloewine.com/Documents/Jacques Copinet Rose.doc
 
I got a response from another source that seems to make sense:

"I think what they are trying to do is distinguish between 'assembling' the wine prior to the second fermentation and 'assembling' the wine after the second fermentation. The 20% red Champagne (base wine) did not undergo a second fermentation (or bottle fermentation) with the chardonnay. The wine was bottled white and made into White Champagne and the 20 % red wine was blended to it just to give it color."

I also found this, from Tom Stevenson, regarding the difference, or lack thereof, between simply adding red wine and employing maceration:

"Some critics believe that maceration is superior to blending white with red, but this is simply not true...Whenever I hear someone claim that maceration is intrinsically superior, I always issue a challenge: I'll set up a blind tasting of 20 rosé Champagnes and you tell me which ones have been made by maceration -- no one has ever taken me up on it!"

--World Encyclopedia of Champagne and Sparkling Wine, 2nd Ed., p. 26
 
originally posted by David Erickson:
"Some critics believe that maceration is superior to blending white with red, but this is simply not true...Whenever I hear someone claim that maceration is intrinsically superior, I always issue a challenge: I'll set up a blind tasting of 20 rosé Champagnes and you tell me which ones have been made by maceration -- no one has ever taken me up on it!"

--World Encyclopedia of Champagne and Sparkling Wine, 2nd Ed., p. 26
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That's so weird. They're quite distinct styles.

I prefer the blended, in truth. Saignées are too harsh for my tastes.

Maybe with age, but who ages NV saignée rosé champagne?
 
originally posted by Sharon Bowman:
That's so weird. They're quite distinct styles.

I prefer the blended, in truth. Saignées are too harsh for my tastes.
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Can you say anything more about how they differ in taste?

I was not aware of this and I don't know whether I could distinguish them.
 
Oh, they are very different. Saignée rosé champagne is rather aggressively tannic, darker and of a completely different beast than blended rosé champagne, which tends more to the raspberry etc. fruit profile in a delicate vein, regardless of the blend of the body of the wine (PN, Ch, PM, etc.).

It really is a marked stylistic choice, and in fact I'd be curious to hear how (if at all) saignée rosés age.

Saignée in Champagne is a small minority of production. But vintage blended wines go far back.
 
For me, the Geoffroy Rose de Saignee ages quite well - at least over the medium term. I haven't had the patience to hold on to any for longer than five years or so. The Larmandier Bernier rose also does well with some age on it and in fact, it really needs some time in bottle to come together.
 
originally posted by Mike Klein:
For me, the Geoffroy Rose de Saignee ages quite well - at least over the medium term. I haven't had the patience to hold on to any for longer than five years or so. The Larmandier Bernier rose also does well with some age on it and in fact, it really needs some time in bottle to come together.
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So far the Volupte is my favorite of the Geoffrey lineup.
 
originally posted by Sharon Bowman:
Oh, they are very different. Saignée rosé champagne is rather aggressively tannic, darker and of a completely different beast than blended rosé champagne, which tends more to the raspberry etc. fruit profile in a delicate vein, regardless of the blend of the body of the wine (PN, Ch, PM, etc.).

It really is a marked stylistic choice, and in fact I'd be curious to hear how (if at all) saignée rosés age.

Saignée in Champagne is a small minority of production. But vintage blended wines go far back.
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It is pretty weird, for the reasons you cite. Which is why it caught my attention.

Hey, you should challenge Stevenson, yeah, have a big production on The Food Network with Anthony Bourdain as emcee and you could become a Champagne celebrity and start hanging out with movie stars and hedge fund managers and suchlike and then write a tell-all memoir about what a bunch of jerks they all are and then announce that you're turning your back on the whole circus and retire to Buxière-sur-Arce and work with Bertrand Gautherot.
 
originally posted by David Erickson:
originally posted by Sharon Bowman:
Oh, they are very different. Saignée rosé champagne is rather aggressively tannic, darker and of a completely different beast than blended rosé champagne, which tends more to the raspberry etc. fruit profile in a delicate vein, regardless of the blend of the body of the wine (PN, Ch, PM, etc.).

It really is a marked stylistic choice, and in fact I'd be curious to hear how (if at all) saignée rosés age.

Saignée in Champagne is a small minority of production. But vintage blended wines go far back.
Click to expand...

It is pretty weird, for the reasons you cite. Which is why it caught my attention.

Hey, you should challenge Stevenson, yeah, have a big production on The Food Network with Anthony Bourdain as emcee and you could become a Champagne celebrity and start hanging out with movie stars and hedge fund managers and suchlike and then write a tell-all memoir about what a bunch of jerks they all are and then announce that you're turning your back on the whole circus and retire to Buxière-sur-Arce and work with Bertrand Gautherot.
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Well most of the prestige roses are made by the 'assemblage' method of blending in a red pinot wine but there are exceptions such as one of the most available of the big names - Laurent-Perrier where IIRC both the unbiquitous NV Rose and the more expensive vintage Alexandra rose are made the 'saignee' way.

And while colour intensity may indeed be one of the more usual differences that also depends on the amount of 'assemblage' wine [as opposed to 'saignee' maceration time] used. One advantage of the assemblage method is that it should be easier to standardise the colour of the wine although e.g. the Taittinger NV Brut rose is often quite dark compared to the Comtes de Champagne rose - both 'assemblage' IIRC.

Tom Stevenson may simply have been reasonably contradicting a small minority who might claim some superiority for the saignee over the assemblage method but I think his second point was equally valid - blind who can tell the difference.

I might go one stage further and choose some of the [good] lighter saignee wines and put them against a few of the [also good] darker assemblage wines and with the wines unidentified ask the same question.

p.s. Roederer Cristal Rose and their NV Rose are also saignee and trying hard to remember the few I have had of either they were quite light too.
 
I think you can tell blind by the style of the tannins. In fact, I'm willing to say that I'm pretty sure it wouldn't be too, too difficult.

Tannin management is why the assemblage technique is allowed in Champagne, but nowhere else. Tannins and acidity accentuate each other. Champagne trades in fairly high acid grapes. So some people avoid the saignee method because they want to have more control over tannin extraction.
 
originally posted by Levi Dalton:
I think you can tell blind by the style of the tannins. In fact, I'm willing to say that I'm pretty sure it wouldn't be too, too difficult.

Tannin management is why the assemblage technique is allowed in Champagne, but nowhere else. Tannins and acidity accentuate each other. Champagne trades in fairly high acid grapes. So some people avoid the saignee method because they want to have more control over tannin extraction.
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Again true and IIRC Veuve Clicquot switched from saignee to the assemblage method early in the 19th century mainly for tannin management reasons and before that I assume saignee was the only method of rose production. However the successful saignee producers today [would you call the Roederer or the Laurent Perrier wines obviously tannic or even the Phillipponat or Paillard ones?] manage the tannins well through careful maceration technique.

OTOH there are some assemblage rose wines that are difficult to tell blind from white Champagne from standard 3 grape blends due to the high percentage of chardonnay and the small amount of heavily de-tannined pinot noir still wine blended in.

I am not looking for an argument but simply making the point that like every generalisation there are exceptions and I don't think Tom Stevenson was wide of the mark with his disagreement with those who suggest the saignee method is superior but also felt that it is unlikely that most [I assume he included himself] could separate, blind, [good] examples of both into their respective saignee and assemblage camps. No doubt there are also saignee wines that would give themselves away by their force and some assemblage wines that would suggest their genesis by their similarity to white wine.
 
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