French-Reading Champagne Lovers--Help?

Opened a lovely Jacques Copinet Brut Rosé last night. Looking at the Copinet web site this morning, I read the following:

"Rosé issu d’un 100 % chardonnay. Le Rosé est issu de l'assemblage de vin blanc et rouge de Champagne, afin d'obtenir une couleur identique au fil du temps. Cette cuvée a été mise en bouteille blanche, laissant le champagne dévoiler sa couleur."

"Composition : vin de base 100% chardonnay + ajout de vin rouge environ 20% pour le couleur."

I give up. How can they say they're making Rose from 100% Chardonnay, then say they're adding up to 20% red wine?

[Robin Garr]

Dave, my French is an awkward combination of self-taught, a few basic Alliance Francaise classes and long osmosis through food and wine, so my translations are more intuitive than precise. But it seems to me that they're saying they created a rosé by blending red wine into a base of Chardonnay in proportions of 80 white to 20 red. I'm not exactly clear on why they stuck the "100 percent Chardonnay" in there - maybe to confuse Americans? But as best I can make out, they started with a white wine - "100 percent Chard" - then added red in the disclosed proportion to make a pink.

Perhaps someone who can actually speak French rather than just hack around in it will step up to correct me.

That's how they make it a Rose.. by adding still red wine. Perhaps the most common way to make a Rose Champagne. Nothing out of the ordinary, really.

[Robin Garr]

That's how they make it a Rose.. by adding still red wine. Perhaps the most common way to make a Rose Champagne. Nothing out of the ordinary, really.

Absolutely. I was just trying to comprehend that reference to 100 percent Champagne. Best I can tell they're saying they start with a white wine base that's all Chard and then ... change of subject ... add red wine to make 20 percent of the blend.

I think what they are trying to do is distinguish between “assembling” the wine prior to the second fermentation and “assembling” the wine after the second fermentation. In this case it is as Jim suggested. The 20% red Champagne (base wine) did not undergo a second fermentation (or bottle fermentation) with the chardonnay. The wine was bottled white and made into White Champagne and the 20 % red Champagne (maybe just as base (still red) wine) was blended to it just to give it color.

Salute

Thank you!

That's how they make it a Rose.. by adding still red wine. Perhaps the most common way to make a Rose Champagne. Nothing out of the ordinary, really.

Absolutely. I was just trying to comprehend that reference to 100 percent Champagne. Best I can tell they're saying they start with a white wine base that's all Chard and then ... change of subject ... add red wine to make 20 percent of the blend.

It's just a confused piece of French prose. Your explanation is what I understand but they should have said it better.

Just to confirm that the French text is poorly expressed.

*Obviously* 100% and 20% make... 120%.

What they *meant* to say is that the white part of the blend (80%) is 100% Chardonnay i.e. is a blanc de blancs and does NOT include any blanc de noirs juice (from Pinot Noir or Pinot Meunier).

Best regards,
Alex R.