closer in appearance to today's rosés than they would be to modern red wines. This is because many of the winemaking techniques used to make today's darker, more tannic red wines (such as extended maceration and harder pressing) were not widely practised in ancient winemaking. Both red and white wine grapes were often pressed soon after harvest, (with very little maceration time) by hand, feet or even sack cloth, creating juice that was only lightly pigmented. Even after the development of newer, more efficient wine presses, many ancient and early winemakers still preferred making the lighter colored and fruitier style of wines. There was an understanding, as early as the time of the Ancient Greeks and Roman winemakers, that harder pressing and letting the juice "sit" for a period with the skins would make darker, heartier wines, but the resulting wines were often considered too harsh and less desirable. This sentiment lasted well into the Middle Ages, when the pale clarets from Bordeaux were starting to gain the world's attention. To the powerful English market, the most prized clarets were, according to wine historian Hugh Johnson, the vin d'une nuit or "wine of one night", which were pale-rosé colored wines made from juice that was allowed only a single night of skin contact. The darker wine produced from must that had longer skin contact were known as the vin vermeilh (or pinpin to the English) was considered to be of much lesser quality. Similarly, in the early history of Champagne, the wines produced from this region during the Middle Ages were nothing like the sparkling white wines associated with the region today. Instead they were pale red and even pinkish, with some Champenois winemakers using elderberries to add more red color to the wines as they competed with the wines of Burgundy for the lucrative Flemish wine trade. In the 16th and 17th century, the region achieved some acclaim for their "white" wines made from Pinot noir grapes, but rather than actually being white, these wines were instead a pale "greyish pink" that was reminiscent of a "partridge's eye" and earned the nickname Œil de Perdrix—a style of rosé still being produced in Switzerland. In the late 17th century, the Champenois (aided by the work of Dom Perignon) learned how to better separate the skins from the must and produce truly white wine from red wine grapes. Even as Champenois