Most rosés can, and in many cases, should be drunk within 12 months of their vintage year. However, plenty of rosé wines taste better after a year or two, and some can even be aged for up to ten years, much to the delight of your taste buds! Here’s the lowdown.
This article is all about good quality rosé which, we’re sorry to say, will not be found at your local supermarket. Most of the mass-produced rosés you’ll find there would have been produced using yeasts added during the winemaking process to artificially give the wine some flavours, which are often taken for the typical aromas associated with rosé. Of course, these are not quite the types of rosé wines you’ll find in iDealwine. So without further ado, let’s take a look at the rosés you can age!
Rosé, a wine typically best enjoyed young
When it comes to ageing, bear in mind that rosé, whether it’s produced by direct pressing or ‘saignée’ (bleeding off), is essentially a wine that has very little contact with the pulp and skin of the grape, and therefore has fewer tannins and less body than a red wine. What’s more, it is usually vinified and matured (briefly) in vats. All in all, it does not appear to offer the slightest ageing potential.
The finest rosés, no matter how great all the care that goes into their making from the vineyard to the cellar, are wines that are produced with techniques intended to preserve and accentuate the natural characteristics of the grapes and intended to be drunk a year after the fruit were harvested. This is all the more true of rosé wines produced by direct pressing (red grapes are pressed and the juice is run off shortly afterwards, before it takes on too much colour), a method which tends to produce fairly pale wines. This is somewhat different for rosé wines produced with the saignée method. This process involves vinifying red wines and, after a day or two, depending on the style of rosé wine intended, letting some of the juice bleed off. This juice will be slightly richer in colour, and, at the same time, help create red wines that possess more concentrated flavours and colour as their vinification continues. Displaying slightly more substance, these rosés can be cellared for a year or two and still retain their freshness and aromas. In a nutshell, that’s what constitutes the vast majority of quality rosé wines. But what about the others… how long can you keep a rosé wine?
Rosés to keep from one to three years
Of course, there is a certain type of rosé that can be kept for a while, or even… for a long time. Pretty much all saignée rosé wines, usually identifiable on account of their fairly intense colour, are at their best after a year’s cellaring and can be enjoyed even two or three years after the grapes have been harvested without losing anything. This is especially true of rosés made from slightly more tannic grape varieties, such as those produced in the Bandol appellation (which often contain more than 50% Mourvèdre) or rosés made, for example, from Syrah, Cabernet Sauvignon or Cabernet Franc. An iDealwine experiment conducted a few years ago with rosés such as the Bandol produced by Domaine de La Tour du Bon, the Côtes de Provence Tibouren from Clos Cibonne and the Bandol made by Château Romassan (Domaines Ott) revealed that these wines all tasted much better (more balanced and slightly more vinous) after a year. So keep in mind you should enjoy the more delicate wines straight away, and the more colourful ones a year later.
To give you specific examples of some of the rosés currently on sale on iDealwine, we have the P.G.I. Méditerranée Triennes Rosé 2023, the Château Thivin Beaujolais Rosé 2023 or the Château de Roquefort Côtes de Provence Corail 2023. With already a year or two of cellaring, you could also savour the Bandol Rosé La Bégude 2021 or the Susucaru Rosé 2022 from Franck Cornelissen. You might also enjoy the Clos Canarelli 2022, which won over Yohan Castaing, who awarded it a score of 93/100 in the Wine Advocate (Robert Parker). According to Castaing, this rosé can be opened up until 2029!
Rosé wines with longer ageing potential
Yes, some rosé wines offer (relatively) long ageing potential. Generally speaking, these are rosés that are macerated for longer (and therefore very colourful) and aged for varying amounts of time in wooden barrels. The most famous example in France is Château Simone’s Palette rosé, which can be aged for a decade or more. Other examples include wines from the little-known Champagne appellation of Rosé des Riceys (a rosé very similar to a red from Burgundy), the Collioure La Goudie produced by La Rectorie and several Tavel wines which may not keep for ten years but are much tastier after two or three have gone by. In Spain, the ultra-traditional Vina Tondonia estate markets a ‘Gran Riserva’ rosé that’s released more than ten years after its vintage! This is because the wine actually spends 4 years in foudres (large capacity wooden tuns) and at least another 6 years in the bottle before being made available to wine lovers. It is important to bear in mind that this type of rosé, drunk after at least ten years’ ageing, is intended for more discerning palates, as the aromas of faded rose and slightly oxidative hints may be disconcerting for those who enjoy intensely fruity rosés! But when served at the table, these wines are superb delicacies that pair wonderfully with fine veal or roast poultry, for example.
