Rouge Brute: A Sparkling Red Wine That Keeps You Sipping
Let’s pop a red cap and get into the bottle with CARBONISTE Winemakers, Dan and Jacqueline Person. These questions go deeper and get bubbly as they share more about CARBONISTE, winemaking, and wine drinking.
Can you tell us more about the Rouge Brute?
Every week we get questions from our sparkling wine fans about what we love about sparkling wine and how we make it. This week we dove into a bottle of our sparkling red wine, the Rouge Brute, and shared more about why we the blend in this vintage keeps the party going.
Jacqueline: How about that Rouge Brute?
Dan: That’s a good wine. Ya. I like that one.
Jacqueline: Haha
Dan: It’s sparkling red wine. If you have never tried sparkling red wine, it’s fantastic! It’s something that when we started making it, we weren’t really sure people wanted it. It was a question mark. People don’t drink it now, do they want to drink it in the future? As soon as we started making it we found out that the answer is YES.
Jacqueline: Ya.
Dan: People are excited about it. Not just because it is a new thing. It’s not just a new thing. People in Lambrusco Italy have been making it for a long time and there is sparkling Shiraz from Australia. We lean toward the dry Lambrusco style, where it is pretty dry with a lot of fruit and herbal components. We don’t have Lambrusco grapes in California so we ended up making it from Merlot. It has a 50% Merlot component, which brings in this nice plumy red fruit and dried mountain herb, as well as the other component, Albariño. Which brings back the acidity and the brightness. It keeps it a party. Keeps it fresh and lively on the pallet. If it was just 100% of Merlot you might drink a glass of it and say, “that’s nice,” set your glass down, and go take a nap. But instead, the Albariño keeps it fun and bright.
Jacqueline: It keeps you sipping.
Dan: Exactly. Ya, it keeps the party going.
Cheers!
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