Rosé is seeing explosive growth as summer rival beer goes flat

Rosé is now a third channel of revenue for wine makers, retailers, and distributors, elbowing its way alongside the traditional categories of red and white.

“There’s been a decoupling of rosé from the rest of wine; its own alcohol category,” says Rodolphe Boulanger, vice-president of beer, wine, and spirits at Fresh Direct, an online grocer based in the Northeast US with sales somewhere just south of US$1 billion.

When Boulanger joined Fresh Direct in 2014, four lonely rosés were for sale. That number leapt to 25 in 2015 and 45 in 2016. When Boulanger sent out a request for samples earlier this year, he was taken aback by what came in. “The level of innovation and new product launches surprised us,” he says. Today the e-commerce grocer has more than 90 rosés in its assortment. One of its most popular is Maris, a canned organic wine from France.

In January, Nielsen reported that the rosé category (including sparkling and still) had reached a valuation of US$389 million annually. Still rosé is up more than 57 per cent over the last 52 weeks, outpacing the overall category of wine, which is growing at a rate of a little more than 2 per cent. That’s more than each of Riesling, Zinfandel, White Zinfandel, Malbec, or Syrah/Shiraz. In terms of volume, still rosé is up 40 per cent.

And while everyone is cheering for craft beer, the past five years in sales show that consumers are spending more on wine and spirits. Goldman Sachs even downgraded some of the biggest beer producers due to sluggish sales, as reported by CNBC. While rosé is growing by leaps and bounds, beer grew only .6 percent in terms of dollars, and was down a fraction of a percent in terms of volume. (But to keep it in context, beer is a $37 billion business annually. Rosé is about one percent of that. Even red and white wine are vastly bigger – at $5.8 billion and $7.1 billion in annual sales, respectively.) As rosé moves into new, summer-friendly formats like cans, boxes, and even 40-oz bottles, it is being marketed heavily to millennials as an alternative to beers on the beach or by the grill.

Where Is It Made? Everywhere

Many consider France to be the epicenter of rosé production, with Provence accounting for 42 percent of that, but Spain is close behind at No. 2, and the U.S. is third in rosé production. While general wine consumption has remained stable in absolute terms, consumption of rosé has increased 20 percent since 2002, with the U.S. and France accounting for nearly half of worldwide demand, according to Conseil Interprofessionnel des Vins de Provence (CIVP).

The craze for all things pink (which applies to sneakers and dresses, too) has resulted in the highly quaffable wine being made everywhere, even in such unlikely locales as Japan and Morocco. “Really serious makers are using their precious treasured grapes to make pink,” says Belinda Chang, a James Beard award-winning sommelier. “There are hundred-dollar bottles on lists. People are collecting rosés now,” she says. Then there’s the straight-out innovation that’s relatively unheard of in the rest of the wine industry: Besides cans of all sizes and bottles with glass tops, there are bottles with etched bottoms and in shades to match every stick of Crayola.

“It’s probably one of the only wines that comes in a clear bottle so you can marvel at its color,” says Andre Mack, winemaker and owner of Oregon’s Mouton Noir Wines, which sold 5,000 cases of a single rosé called Love Drunk. When he first made it in 2010, it was a hard sell. “The problem with rosé is that it’s labeled a seasonal thing, so you try to make the right amount,” he says. “No one wants to be caught with last year’s rosé.” Because he was one of the first out of the gate on the West Coast, Mack had to scale back at first. When the wine officially became a hit, he allocated more grapes back to rosé production. Next year he’s on track to make 8,000 cases.