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coming up rosés
A recent news item out of France was lamenting, quite rightly, proposed EU regulation changes which would allow rosé wines to be made by simply blending red and white. The traditional way of making rosé uses only red grapes. The process, which in France is called "saignée" (bleeding) involves the grape juice and skins being kept together for a very short time just a few hours after crushing. This allows a small amount of red colour to bleed from the skins into the otherwise almost colourless juice to produce a shade of pink, which varies in intensity according to grape variety and the length of time the juice and skins are kept together.
k syrah and TOSSI
A new brand of syrah has been released from the Matakana wine region - Ransom 2007 K-Syrah. Ransom Wines have entered into a long term sponsorship of the Tawharanui Open Sanctuary Society Inc., (TOSSI), and for each bottle of the 2007 K-Syrah sold they will contribute one dollar toward the impending release of Kakarike, a beautiful green and yellow native parakeet at the nearby Tawharanui Open Sanctuary.
the season for reds
Now that the weather has turned we start thinking about winter fare and the wines which go with it. Most people associate red wines more with winter and whites with summer, which is fair enough given the heavier foods we tend to have in the winter. Many don't make seasonal distinctions in the colour of the wine they drink, particularly in France where they have an expression le premier devoir de chaque raisin c'est d'etre rouge - "the first duty of every grape is to be red", a sentiment which I fully understand.