Griesel Sekt Rosé Brut – Tradition 2021

The Griesel Sekt Rosé Tradition Brut 2021 is a classic rosé sparkling wine made from Pinot Noir and Pinot Meunier. The Rosé Brut smells of red fruits like small Mieze Schindler strawberries, sweet and sour rhubarb and red currants, delicate orange blossoms and herbal notes are added, soft flatbread rounds off the impressions. On the palate, it shows a powerful perlage, mouth-filling, mineral with good grip, pink pearls without any sweetness, puristic but with a lot of juiciness.

Sekthaus Griesel – how the Rosé Brut is made

The grapes for this Griesel Sekt Rosé brut grow on soils of the Hessische Bergstraße, which are characterized by a high granite content, so that the vines have to dig deep into the ground. This and the cool winds from the nearby Odenwald ensure a good acid structure and minerality in the base wines.

The Pinot Noir and Pinot Meunier grapes were 100% hand-picked in September 2021 and then pressed very gently. As in Champagne, Niko Brandner also knows the importance of gentle pressing, because the less tannins and wax from the berry skin get into the must, the finer and longer-lasting the perlage in the sparkling wine can later become. Only about 50% of the juice present in the berries is pressed. This first creates a white wine from red grape varieties, a Blanc de Noir.

In the cellar, Niko Brandner gives things time, so the grapes are allowed to ferment spontaneously and undergo malolactic fermentation, in which the malic acid in the wine is converted into the milder lactic acid, which gives the wine a special mouthfeel and creaminess. Cellar master Brandner combines large and small stainless steel (80%) and wooden (20%) barrels for aging, which gives the sparkling wine more complexity. The Griesel Rosé is a Rosé Assemblage, which means that a part of red wine was added to the white-pressed Blanc de Noir during blending, just enough to create the delicate pink or rather coppery color.

One year later, on July 15, 2022, the Pinot is bottled without filtration and without fining and tirage is added to initiate the second fermentation in the bottle. The dosage was 4g/l. Now it is allowed to rest and mature for another 20 months in the cellar built in 1904 on the fine lees, it is regularly riddled and the bottles are increasingly turned upside down, until at the end of disgorging the yeast plug is removed from the bottle and the Griesel Sekt Rosé Tradition finally goes on sale at the end of March 2024.

Tradition – Time and Enjoyment

A Griesel Sekt of the Tradition classification is produced using traditional bottle fermentation. After bottling the base wine, it matures for at least 20 months on the lees and undergoes the second fermentation, the conversion of wine to sparkling wine. The long yeast contact ensures a fine perlage and notes of brioche, of fine yeast dough, in the Griesel Sekt Tradition.

• 12% vol. alcohol
• 6.7g/l acidity
• 4.0g/l residual sugar