© Patrick Jassiones
Rosé des Riceys wines are still, pink varietal wines made from Pinot Noir – something of an anomaly in their home region, Champagne. The wines are produced in and around the commune of Riceys, in the Aube department in the far south of Champagne. They are intensely colored, and have the distinctive varietal Pinot Noir perfume of red cherries and dried herbs.
The grapes are whole-bunch pressed and vinified by semi-carbonic maceration, a vinification technique more famously associated with the bright, bubblegum-scented Beaujolais Nouveau wines.
Only very few producers make Rosé des Riceys wines, and in limited quantities, so they are very rarely seen outside France. They are just even rarer than those of Champagne's other still wine appellation, Coteaux Champenois.
