If you pick up a large glass of rose and look through it, the failing dull winter light turns into a spectacular pink tinted sunset, remnants of holidays past. This is the place rose seems to be drunk most, abroad in much warmer climbs.

The French are extremely keen on the stuff, and about 1 in 5 bottles of wine sold in France is rose. Until relatively recently, if someone offered you a glass of rose in the UK, it was treated with as much disdain as some fizzy water that recently contained a piece of discarded bubblegum.

The French went out of their way to produce excellent rose, involving red wine grapes like Grenache, Syrah, Cabernet and Carignan. The skins are removed early on in the process, leaving the pink liquid to ferment. This quality fizzy juice was infectious and more and more people here are now quaffing the stuff on a hot summers day over a barbecue.

There is a threat on the pink tinted horizon. The process of blending to make rose, previously not permitted, may well soon be allowed by the European Commission to supply the ever growing global demand in places like China.

This puts the traditional production methods in France under threat, and could result in a totally different drink. Blending is simply mixing red and white wine until it looks and tastes like rose. A drink that unlike lovingly produced complex red wine grape rose, will contain lots of white wine, probably Sauvingon and Chardonnay.

You can imagine a wine producer looking into a barrel of white, grabbing a bottle of red plonk and pouring it in. Hey presto rose. Sounds a bit of a con, I want blood sweat and tears in my rose.

Blended rose has a feeling of a soda stream equivalent of a bottle of coke. I can see visions of rose being blended to order at a bar with one of those horrendous push button dispensers.

Quality seems to being compromised for market pressures. Back to bubblegum in a glass. The manufacturing process should be made clear on the label so we have an informed choice.

Have your say

Name:
Email:
Website:
Message: