The reason why this rose tasted so epically different is because it is not a rose, or rosado in Spanish. The LDH rose is technically a clarete which is a blend of red and white grapes fermented on the skins like a red wine…old school…something done in this region, several others in Spain and have seen it other places but not as a actual cultural or legally enforced wine.
The Rioja DOC requires at least 25% of a clarete blend be made from red grape varieties, so in theory a clarete could be made up of 75% of white grapes.
Is that so? Because I’ve had some Spanish claretes and Heredia doesn’t taste really like it. It tastes more like a rosé that has been aged for exceptionally long in oak barrels.
Perhaps because - according to the winery - the base blend is “Garnacho (60%), Tempranillo (30%), and Viura (10%), all from our own vineyards”, which sounds pretty classic rosado to me.
100% positive LdH is a clarete…the difference between rosado and clarete has nothing to do with long aging barrels. The difference between a clarete and rosado are that the wine is fermented on the skins for a clarete while a rosado is just feremnted juice.
Luis Gutierrez, Wine Advocate
The only Gran Reserva rosé of the Rioja appellation (they were waiting for the appellation’s back labels, as they have to print them especially for López de Heredia) makes a glorious comeback with the 2008 Viña Tondonia Rosado Gran Reserva, which follows the previous 2000. This has a completely different profile from the rest of the rosé wines produced in Rioja—and the whole world (I think, as I have not tasted them all!). It really is a “clarete,” not a rosé, as it’s produced with a mixture of red and white grapes (60% Garnacha, 30% Tempranillo and 10% Viura) fermented and macerated together. It’s a matured and developed rosé aged in used American oak barrels for four years and kept in vat and bottle to be released at age ten.
“María José López de Heredia claims her family’s rosado is in the tradition of the clarete wines of Rioja, made in the image of 19th-century claret from Bordeaux. She explains, “The founder of the bodega, Don Rafael López de Heredia y Landeta, acquired his vinicultural knowledge in France. On arriving in La Rioja in 1877, he adapted the Rioja method of making clarete, but he literally translated the French word rosé when it came to naming the wine.” The rosado is only made in vintages where enough Garnacha and Viura can be spared from the red and white cuvées. While the current release is 2008, the previous vintage for the wine was 2000 (2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, and possibly 2018 will also be produced). A blend of 60% Garnacha, 30% Tempranillo, and 10% Viura, the rosado show more kinship to the Viña Tondonia Tinto and Blanco wines than it does to any other rosé. Flavors of tart cherry and brine bring laser-sharp precision to the palate, complemented by a rusty patina that speaks to the oxidative house style.”
I know that the oak aging has nothing to do with a wine being a clarete or not, since I’ve tasted claretes that have been both oak-aged and aged in stainless steel. I just commented how Heredia Rosado tastes like. And you are incorrect in that rosado is just fermented juice, since basically all Rioja Rosados see skin contact - Tempranillo isn’t an intensively colored grape variety and Garnacha is even less so, so the wines must see some maceration to color the wines pink. Normally from a few hours to something of a day. Also, the Rioja DOCa requires at least 25% of a Rosado to be made from red grape varieties - not clarete, since it is not a legally defined wine style.
How claretes differ from rosés is that they feel more like pale red wines that see several days’ worth of maceration. Most of the claretes I’ve tasted have had something like a 50/50 blend of white and red varieties with maceration times of several days. Now, as Heredia’s Rosado didn’t taste like these claretes I had tasted (well, neither does it taste like any other wine, come to think of it), I asked if it is truly a clarete. In essence, do you have any idea how much maceration time Heredia Rosado sees? All the sources I can find just say “co-fermented and macerated with the skins”, but none of them says a single word about the maceration time. I have always thought it was in the range of a few hours, but if the maceration time truly is counted in days and not just in hours, I’ll happily accept Heredia Rosado as a clarete.
Sorry, but you are not correct here as rosado is fermented as just juice. Yes, it gets the color from a pre-fermentation soak with skins but that is not fermentation, this is maceration. The must/skins/pulp are separated from the skins for fermentation after a short period BEFORE fermentation starts. You are talking vinification, the entire process, and I am talking just the fermentation part of the vinification. A clarete on the other hand is fermented with the skins. THIS is the difference in how they are both made.
“The grape is destemmed, lightly crushed and sent to draining tanks. Here, it is left to macerate for a short period. It is then pressed and left for a day for the suspended particles to settle. The clean must is then put in controlled temperature fermenters.”
As for if LdH is or is not a clarete, I have no reason to not believe Maria Jose herself who manages LdH:
“María José López de Heredia claims her family’s rosado is in the tradition of the clarete wines of Rioja, made in the image of 19th-century claret from Bordeaux. She explains, “The founder of the bodega, Don Rafael López de Heredia y Landeta, acquired his vinicultural knowledge in France. On arriving in La Rioja in 1877, he adapted the Rioja method of making clarete, but he literally translated the French word rosé when it came to naming the wine.” The rosado is only made in vintages where enough Garnacha and Viura can be spared from the red and white cuvées. While the current release is 2008, the previous vintage for the wine was 2000 (2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, and possibly 2018 will also be produced). A blend of 60% Garnacha, 30% Tempranillo, and 10% Viura, the rosado show more kinship to the Viña Tondonia Tinto and Blanco wines than it does to any other rosé. Flavors of tart cherry and brine bring laser-sharp precision to the palate, complemented by a rusty patina that speaks to the oxidative house style.”
Ok, so you’re saying that the maceration happens only during the fermentation? From you original message of “only fermented juice” you just made it sound like there was no maceration at all for the other Rosados, which confused me.
However, this still sounds slightly weird to me. For example making saignée rosé is allowed in Rioja and in this style maceration happens during fermentation - one just bleeds off some pale, partly fermented must after a short maceration time and either lets it finish dry or adds it to a Rosado. And while certainly most modern rosados are made by cold macerating the grapes before the fermentation, it still sounds odd to say that this is the only way to make rosé and the key factor between a rosado and a clarete. If somebody made a traditional rosado by crushing the fruit and letting the grapes macerate over some hours to half a day while the fermentation kicks in, would this make the wine a rosado or a clarete to you?
And if María LdH says so, I guess it also means that Heredia Rosado actually sees some noticeable skin contact then. I’d really love to hear how much that really is - and if somebody has some in-depth knowledge on the matter, please chip in.
Maceration is just the contact of juice to skin. It can happen before fermentation, during fermentation and even after fermentation.
Winemaking for the most part, as you allude to, is not an absolute or binary process, so exceptions always exist to how some people might do things a little different here and there.
Rosado tends to get its color with a soak before fermentation starts and then fermentation is just the juice as they are separated. If the musts were not removed at some point it would end up being a red wine.
Your question above: “Ok, so you’re saying that the maceration happens only during the fermentation?”
My answer above: Maceration is just the contact of juice to skin. It can happen before fermentation, during fermentation and even after fermentation. And yes, these are very basic points about making a rose wine.
“From you original message of “only fermented juice” you just made it sound like there was no maceration at all for the other Rosados, which confused me.”
Sorry to confuse you, I just took it for granted that maceration can be done on a pink wine, or even blending but that’s a whole other concept off track.
But I guess what you are asking is, is how long the LdH rose is macerated on the skins if truly a clarete? For that you should email the winery. If Maria, who runs the winery, says it is a clarete then I am just fine taking her word for it. If you are not then that is your prerogative. I, unfortunately, have not come across anything that points to how long it is macerated for.
If you have any other facts or information cited elsewhere on this or any other things you are citing it would be great if you shared them like I have. Always great to share more information!
My question referred to claretes, not winemaking in general. I apologize if I was unclear on this question.
I already said above that if they say so, I’m willing to accept is as clarete. However, that implies the wine sees some prolonger maceration and I asked whether anyone knows how long the wine macerates with the skins (during the fermentation).
However, since you originally defined clarete as a wine that sees white grapes and the skins are macerated during the fermentation (as opposed to the pre-fermentation cold soak), I asked whether you’d then consider a wine with a minimal amount of white grapes in the blend and having a few hours of skin maceration during the fermentation with no pre-fermentation cold soak, would you consider this as clarete? To me, this sounds like a rosado and a wine that would have very little to do with those claretes I’ve tasted, but according to your criteria, it would be clarete. I just wanted some clarification concenrning this point.
Furthermore, I really didn’t understand what was so special about a clarete that would be 75% white grapes warranting a special mention - basically any Rioja Rosado could be made that way according to the appellation laws, yet I ahven’t seen anybody making a fuss over this fact.
This would seem to be like a saignee, as you remove the juice from the skins during fermentation…not sure if anyone does that or why they would if making a rose wine, be it either rosado or clarete.
It would be saignée rosé if you took a part of the wine away to be vinified as a rosé, while retaining the other part that remained with the grape skins to be vinified as a red wine. And that’s exactly why one would do that - in order to make a more concentrated red.
However, it wouldn’t be a saignée rosé if you vinified the whole must as a rosé wine, now would it? Otherwise wouldn’t LdH Rosado would be a saignée rosé as well by that logic? Or do you think that the skins are kept in contact with Heredia’s Rosado until the fermentation has finished?
Right, when you asked the question if the wine was removed from the skins during fermntation is it a rosado…no, I think it would be a saignee. If you took it all off thouhg? Not aware of anyone that does that and if they do what they call it.
Again, for LdH, I’d just email them and ask them…they are pretty responsive.
I need to try their Rosé sometime, but each time I stand in front of a bottle in a store and see that it’s $80-100 I walk away. I guess it must be demand that makes them so expensive as their other wines seems excellent values.
![[inquisition.gif]](/uploads/db3686/original/2X/c/ca509cfc4f437b06c2c96ea8a6efc6109476d648.gif "inquisition")
![[snort.gif]](/uploads/db3686/original/2X/b/bdc3944606213c4dca6c1169cf0a166c8bc4f8c9.gif "snort.gif"){kind=small}