Winemaker Notes
Professional Ratings
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Jeb Dunnuck
The NV Champagne Grand Cru Face Nord Brut Rosé is a blend of 80% Pinot Noir (including 5% red wine) and 20% Chardonnay. In the glass, it displays a bright peachy salmon color and emits a powdery aroma of perfume, anise (pastis!), peach, wet stones, strawberries, and pastry dough. Medium-bodied, it’s bright with intensity and lively energy, focused and sporty, flowing through the palate with notes of salted grapefruit, chalky earth, cranberries, and rhubarb. This release is 75% from 2021 and 25% from perpetual reserve.
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Wine & Spirits
This gains its pink color from ten percent still pinot noir, grown in Verzenay, fermented and aged in oak, then blended with 70 percent pinot noir and 30 percent chardonnay. It’s the least flamboyant of the Pehu wines we tasted, with subtler strawberry sweetness and rose petal scents. It finishes with woodland freshness. Delicious with duck.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
A Pehu-Simonet NV Brut Rose Disg. 8/2012 incorporates 30% Chardonnay, and 10% of its dominant Pinot represents barrique-raised still wine. A tart-edged tang of fresh red currant and sour cherry is suffused with salt, chalk, and mussel shells for a bright, juicy, and intensely invigorating, downright gripping performance. This is hardly your “pretty in pink” rose, and I suspect that (its disgorgement date notwithstanding) it will be more interesting – not to mention preserve its formidable sense of energy and stamina – after a year or so more in bottle.
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Wine Enthusiast
This is an attractive, onion-skin-colored wine, dry and crisp. It has red currant and lemon zest flavors, taut and with a definite mineral character. This rosé could probably age and is certainly one for food.
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Wine Spectator
Wood smoke and spice notes are laced with more subtle flavors of wild strawberry, orange zest and fresh ginger in this energetic rosé, with a lively bead and zippy acidity.
What are the different types of sparkling rosé wine?
Rosé sparkling wines like Champagne, Prosecco, Cava, and others make a fun and festive alternative to regular bubbles—but don’t snub these as not as important as their clear counterparts. Rosé Champagnes (i.e., those coming from the Champagne region of France) are made in the same basic way as regular Champagne, from the same grapes and the same region. Most other regions where sparkling wine is produced, and where red grape varieties also grow, also make a rosé version.
How is sparkling rosé wine made?
There are two main methods to make rosé sparkling wine. Typically, either white wine is blended with red wine to make a rosé base wine, or only red grapes are used but spend a short period of time on their skins (maceration) to make rosé colored juice before pressing and fermentation. In either case the base wine goes through a second fermentation (the one that makes the bubbles) through any of the various sparkling wine making methods.
What gives rosé Champagne and sparkling wine their color and bubbles?
The bubbles in sparkling wine are formed when the base wine undergoes a secondary fermentation, which traps carbon dioxide inside the bottle or fermentation vessel. During this stage, the yeast cells can absorb some of the wine’s color but for the most part, the pink hue remains.
How do you serve rosé sparkling wine?
Treat rosé sparkling wine as you would treat any Champagne, Prosecco, Cava, and other sparkling wine of comparable quality. For storing in any long-term sense, these should be kept at cellar temperature, about 55F. For serving, cool to about 40F to 50F. As for drinking, the best glasses have a stem and a flute or tulip shape to allow the bead (bubbles) and beautiful rosé hue to show.
How long do rosé Champagne and sparkling wine last?
Most rosé versions of Prosecco, Champagne, Cava or others around the “$20 and under” price point are intended for early consumption. Those made using the traditional method with extended cellar time before release (e.g., Champagne or Crémant) can typically improve with age. If you are unsure, definitely consult our Customer Care team for guidance.
Associated with luxury, celebration, and romance, the region, Champagne, is home to the world’s most prized sparkling wine. In order to bear the label, ‘Champagne’, a sparkling wine must originate from this northeastern region of France—called Champagne—and adhere to strict quality standards. Made up of the three towns Reims, Épernay, and Aÿ, it was here that the traditional method of sparkling wine production was both invented and perfected, birthing a winemaking technique as well as a flavor profile that is now emulated worldwide.
Well-drained, limestone and chalky soil defines much of the region, which lend a mineral component to its wines. Champagne’s cold, continental climate promotes ample acidity in its grapes but weather differences from year to year can create significant variation between vintages. While vintage Champagnes are produced in exceptional years, non-vintage cuvées are produced annually from a blend of several years in order to produce Champagnes that maintain a consistent house style.
With nearly negligible exceptions, . These can be blended together or bottled as individual varietal Champagnes, depending on the final style of wine desired. Chardonnay, the only white variety, contributes freshness, elegance, lively acidity and notes of citrus, orchard fruit and white flowers. Pinot Noir and its relative Pinot Meunier, provide the backbone to many blends, adding structure, body and supple red fruit flavors. Wines with a large proportion of Pinot Meunier will be ready to drink earlier, while Pinot Noir contributes to longevity. Whether it is white or rosé, most Champagne is made from a blend of red and white grapes—and uniquely, rosé is often produce by blending together red and white wine. A Champagne made exclusively from Chardonnay will be labeled as ‘blanc de blancs,’ while ones comprised of only red grapes are called ‘blanc de noirs.’