I want to start by saying that I think it's a bit of a shame that many people only drink rosé in the summer. Many rosés are excellent food wines, more forgiving than both white and red, and therefore go very well with many of the dishes we eat all year round.

Myth No. 1. This thing about the color:

Many of my guests come to me and ask for a light rosé...as light as possible, please.

This makes me curious (since the color of a rosé wine has nothing to do with the taste) so I've started asking my guests why and through this little research I've come to the conclusion that most people think that a darker rosé is sweeter. IT'S NOT SO! The color has to do with which grape(s) the wine is made from and how long the grape skins have been in contact with the must. This process is called maceration and is exactly the same as when you brew a cup of tea. The longer we leave the tea leaves in the water, the darker the tea becomes, right? HOWEVER, the color can sometimes reflect flavor intensity (just like with our tea that we just brewed) but actually not always.

There are quite a few rosés that are made from grapes with thick skins that have a lot of color in them but are still very light and fresh in taste.

What about the sweetness?

Well, to avoid getting too technical, I'll try to explain briefly. All wines contain sugar. Even really dry wines have a measurable residual sweetness (i.e. grams of sugar per liter of wine) even if it is very low. How we PERCEIVE sweetness is a completely different matter! Here we are influenced by the other properties of the wine. We start with the acidity. If the wine has a high acidity, we perceive the sugar content as lower and vice versa. We can try a wine with up to 20-25g of residual sweetness and perceive it as completely dry if the acidity is high enough!! Alcohol content also affects. A really dry wine (i.e. residual sweetness below 2g) can be perceived as sweeter if the alcohol content is high and the acidity is low.

Myth No. 2. Light rosés are of higher quality.

The color of a wine, be it white, pink, orange or red, has NOTHING to do with its quality! Period, star stop!

What determines the quality of a wine is entirely the producer. If the wine comes from a good producer who knows his craft from vineyard to bottle, we have a high quality product in our hands. NB now I'm not talking about taste, taste is completely subjective and very personal. If we were to compare it to clothes, for example, most of us can quite easily distinguish good and skilled craftsmanship even if it is something we would never wear.

As a final word, I want to encourage you to dare!! Dare to test, dare to challenge yourself, dare to ask! And dare to try something you haven't tried before!

If you are in Stockholm and want to talk wine, you are warmly welcome to Dryck Vinbar at Mariatorget!

Rosé tip: Riedlin Spätburgunder rosé no. 70395 order assortment

A lovely completely dry rosé with fresh red berries in the aroma. Here we find strawberries and tart cherries in harmony with a soft herbaceousness and crunchy minerality.

Malin Axelsson

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