A quick visit to Bandol, Chateauneuf and Gigondas

Here’s the deal - most folks who do ‘saignee’ roses crush the grapes and then let the juice be in contact with the skins for about 24 hours of cold soaking, not fermentation, before ‘bleeding off’ some of the juice in order to make their Rose.

I know that this is not how this wine is made - at least I’m 99% positive that that is the case. My guess is that they bring the grapes in, perhaps crush them a bit, and then press them after 24 hours of skin contact.

What I’m saying is that in either case, when the skins are in contact for that long, you will usually end up with a darker wine - period.

Cheers!

Your hypothesis sounds consistent with the website, no?

There website is not clear at all - it says that they completely destemmed and then pressed and then cold maceration takes place prior to primary fermentation.

In this scenario, though, cold maceration usually takes place with the skins, but in this case, after pressing, you would not have any skin contact.

My guess is that something is amiss on their website - and that the grapes may be destemmed but are probably not pressed immediately - OR they are crushed, not pressed, for cold maceration, then pressed.

Cheers,

Ah. Right. I wasn’t reading it carefully. I would guess it’s just poorly expressed.

I found the brochure from the winery, and here’s what it says for the rose: “Direct pressing of the grapes, skin cold-maceration, maturation in stainless steel or cement vats for 6 to 8 months.”

Still not entirely clear. I wonder if they’re saying “press” when they mean “crush” both on the website and in the brochure. Since those words English have similar meanings in common parlance (i.e., not as wine terms), it might just be a bad translation.