Rosé Tradition Brut

Rosé Tradition Brut from Griesel Sekt: copper-toned and bone-dry

Rosé Tradition Brut from Griesel Sekt is a sparkling rosé made from Pinot Noir and Pinot Meunier, first pressed as white wine and only gaining its color during the blending process with red wine. It then spent twenty months on its fine lees before the yeast was removed from the bottle.

Rosé Tradition Brut is the rosé from the entry-level line of Griesel Sekt in Bensheim on the Hessian Bergstraße; it was harvested in September 2022 and bottled with a dosage of 4 grams per liter. The two grape varieties provide the structure, while the red wine added at the very end provides the copper color.

How the color is determined at the final stage

Anyone who makes rosé by macerating the skins determines the color the moment they press, and cannot take it back afterwards. Griesel Sekt reverses the order.

Pinot Noir and Pinot Meunier are pressed as white wine, resulting in a pale wine made from red grapes. Only during blending is just enough red wine added so that the tone turns copper rather than a garish pink.

The advantage lies in the precision, because an amount of red wine can be measured and, if necessary, adjusted, whereas skin-contact time progresses with every passing hour.

Small strawberries, rhubarb, and warm bread

It smells of small red strawberries and bittersweet rhubarb, accompanied by red currants and delicate orange blossom. Behind this lie a herbal note and soft flatbread from the long aging on the lees.

On the palate, the perlage is punchy and mouth-filling; the mouthfeel remains mineral and grippy, and there is no trace of sweetness. This makes it feel puristic, juicy, and alert, even after the bottle has been open for a while.

Lamb chops from the grill bring out the red fruit, tomatoes with burrata meet its acidity, and a cold gazpacho gains its contours only through this wine. It is also perfect as an aperitif, because a dosage of 4 grams per liter is barely perceptible as sweetness.

What the warm 2022 vintage brought

2022 was a hot and dry year in the Bergstraße region, where sugar levels in the berries rose faster than acidity could keep up. The site and soil work exactly against this.

The vines grow on sandy decomposed granite, which hardly holds water, and the Odenwald forest sends cool air into the vineyards at night. This nocturnal coolness is the real asset of the Bergstraße region. The grapes were harvested entirely by hand in September 2022 and pressed so gently that only about half of the juice runs off.

Nearly two-thirds of the base wines subsequently matured in stainless steel, a good third in wood, and they fermented spontaneously with the yeasts already present on the berries. On July 21, 2023, the wine was bottled along with the tirage. It never saw a filter, nor any fining agents.

After twenty months on the fine lees, it was disgorged and released for sale at the end of March 2025. Those who wish to follow the line further will find the Blanc de Noirs Tradition made from the same red varieties and the Riesling Tradition as a pale counterpart, and the rest of the sparkling range can be found under sparkling wines.