Rosé Prestige Extra Brut – 2019

Rosé Prestige Extra Brut by Griesel Sekt: puristic and juicy

The 2019 Rosé Prestige Extra Brut from Griesel Sekt is a rosé sparkling wine made from Pinot Noir, with a small portion of red wine from a "réserve perpétuelle" added. It was awarded 93 points by the Wine Advocate, and 4,290 bottles were produced.

Rosé Prestige Extra Brut 2019 is the vintage rosé sparkling wine from Griesel Sekt in Bensheim, located on the Hessian Bergstraße; it was harvested in September 2019 and disgorged in June 2023. Extra Brut means that a maximum of six grams of residual sugar per liter is permitted, and here there are just two.

Mieze Schindler strawberry, rhubarb, and orange blossom

It smells of small red strawberries of the Mieze Schindler variety, accompanied by sweet-and-sour rhubarb and red currants.

Delicate orange blossom and a herbal touch layer over this, with soft flatbread from the long yeast aging appearing right at the back. On the palate, the effervescence is powerful, the mouthfeel remains mineral and grippy, and there is no trace of sweetness.

Vitello tonnato and grilled shrimp go well with it, as does a plate of Serrano ham or pan-seared red mullet. Because it lacks sweetness, it does not become cloying even at the end of a bottle, remaining as drinkable as it was in the first glass. It is not very suitable for dessert, however, as its structure is too straightforward.

A dash of red wine from the eternal barrel

Most rosé wines are made by letting the must sit on the berry skins for a short time to extract color. Griesel Sekt takes a different approach here.

The vines are situated on the Bergstraße on lean granite sand that barely retains water, allowing the grapes to retain their acidity. The harvest is done by hand, and the wine is fermented with the yeasts already present on the berries. First, the Pinot Noir is pressed as a white wine, meaning a light wine is produced from red grapes. Only during blending is five percent red wine added—just enough for the color—and this red wine comes from a "réserve perpétuelle."

Such a reserve is a barrel that is never completely emptied. What is removed is replenished by the next vintage, so that with each year, a little more history sits in the barrel. The rosé thus contains more than just one vintage, even if only 2019 appears on the label.

Coppery shimmer instead of candy pink

Because the color comes from a small amount of red wine and not from a long maceration period, it remains light and takes on a coppery hue, consistent with classic rosé sparkling wines.

A good three-fifths of the base wines were aged in wood, the rest in stainless steel, which is an unusually high proportion of wood for a rosé. After bottling in July 2020, the wine spent thirty-four months on the fine lees, with the customary riddling, until the yeast left the bottle in June 2023.

Two grams of dosage and 7.2 grams of acidity per liter create a framework that Stephan Reinhardt deemed worthy of 93 points in the Wine Advocate. Also available are the 2020 Rosé Prestige and the Pinot Noir Prestige from the same vintage, which makes up the majority of this wine. You can find more bottle-fermented sparkling wines in our sparkling wine collection.