Rosé Apple Brut – 2020

Rosé Apfel Brut 2020 by Wiesen: juicy and dryly structured

Rosé Apfel Brut 2020 by Wiesen is a pink apple sparkling wine from the Hessische Bergstraße, created using traditional bottle fermentation. It spent twenty-four months on the lees. Its color comes from spontaneously fermented currant juice rather than a sugar solution.

Rosé Apfel Brut 2020 is a pink fruit sparkling wine from Wiesen in Bensheim, pressed from regional apples of several varieties. It has been treated with the same patience usually reserved for the base wines of premium winemaker sparkling wines (Winzersekt). The 0.75-liter bottle contains 8.7 percent alcohol, noticeably less than in a sparkling wine made from grapes.

Red apple must, currants, and a tart character

In the glass, it appears a pale salmon pink, not a garish candy color. First, you get the must of ripe apples, smelling as if fresh from the press, and only then does the bittersweet currant emerge, both red and black in a single aroma. The perlage remains fine and never gets in the way of the drinking flow.

Despite all the berry fruit, it comes across as dry because the acidity of the currant keeps the sweetness in check. If served too cold, however, the fruit is suppressed, which is why it reveals significantly more a few degrees above refrigerator temperature than it does straight from the door.

Watermelon with feta is its perfect summer partner, a tomato salad with burrata suits it just as well, and cured char gets that fresh touch from it that would otherwise require a slice of lemon. It is not, however, well-suited for sweets, as it simply lacks the necessary sugar.

The dosage comes from berry juice

During disgorgement, the yeast plug shoots out of the bottle neck, and the liquid lost in the process is topped up. This topping up is called the dosage and usually consists of a sugar solution or, in the case of fruit, simply apple juice.

Niko Brandner uses spontaneously fermented juice from red and black currants for this, which adds both color and fruit in a single step. No maceration on the berry skins is required, as the berry character only emerges at the very end.

Spontaneously fermented means that this juice has also already undergone fermentation and brings no raw sugar with it. Nevertheless, a little more residual sweetness remains than in the Ancestral with Hops, whose fructose has been completely fermented out.

Second fermentation in the bottle with riddling and disgorging

The fully fermented apple wine is bottled with yeast and a little sugar, where a second fermentation begins. This creates the fine carbonation that later rises to the surface in the glass. This is exactly how winemaker sparkling wine from grapes is created in the same cellar.

The Rosé then rests on the fine lees for twenty-four months before it is riddled and the bottles are gradually moved upside down in their racks over the course of weeks. At the end, the yeast sits in the bottle neck and is expelled in one go during disgorgement.

The must was previously fermented spontaneously in barriques of various ages, without any cultured yeast dictating the profile. Because the pressure varies from bottle to bottle, the closure should be loosened slowly. Next to it stands the Rosé from the 2018 vintage, which has two more harvest years behind it and therefore has a calmer presence, and further bottle-fermented wines are waiting on the same shelf.