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For some readers – I’m talking about the kind of reader who spent their youth sinking two-for-a-fiver off licence bottles of pink zinfandel before every night out – this article should perhaps come with a trigger warning. Because rosé wine, the oft-maligned drink that could sometimes taste more like Ribena than Ribera del Duero, is having a moment. A roségence, if you will. And for those who remember the drink as a sweet, strawberry elixir that slipped down almost as effortlessly as it came back up, the very thought might bring on a hangover.
You can’t argue with the numbers, though. Sales are up 16% year-on-year at Majestic, while Sainsbury’s has increased its range by 15% in order to keep up with the hot-weather demand for the drink. The Rosé festival is launching at the Geffrye Museum in east London this weekend, while the craze for frosé – rosé in slush form – is in full swing.
In the celebrity world, impending divorce hasn’t yet stopped production of Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie’s award-winning Chateau Miraval rosé, while even Jeremy Clarkson enjoys a glass of the pink stuff (although he does have to repair the terrible damage to his masculinity by labelling it “lady petrol”). Instagram, meanwhile, is full of people flaunting their obsession with the drink’s peachy-pink blush.
Frosé: frozen rosé wine
What has happened to make us a nation of rosé drinkers, and why now? Younger drinkers, for one, are playing a substantial role in its popularity. Lorna Andrews, a fashion influencer and blogger, thinks rosé’s less intimidating image has helped its rise. “You can lob a cube of ice in it without fear of vitriol and serve it with any food whatsoever,” she says. “It’s a drink that says: ‘I don’t take life too seriously.’”
She posts the occasional stylish picture of rosé on her Instagram account, @LornaLuxe, and says the drink’s millennial pink-esque colouring is “100%” a factor in its popularity online. “A pretty picture on Instagram can sum up a 200-page novel if served well, and pink looks pretty on the ’gram,” she says.
Rosé’s visual aspect is something that first caught the attention of the two women behind @YesWayRosé, an Instagram fan account for the drink that blossomed from being a place to share rosé jokes into a fully-fledged brand that sells pale pink merchandise and even their own Summer Water wine, produced on California’s central coast.
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“We couldn’t believe this beautiful, peachy pinkish colour could exist,” says Erica Blumenthal, who started the account with her Baltimore high-school friend Nikki Huganir. “It was able to shine in all of our pictures.”
The idea for @YesWayRose came to the pair when they were both living in New York City and going for regular meals together – where they became infatuated with the wine. Huganir isn’t sure if the roségence – a phrase that is definitely, definitely catching on – is tied in with the current vogue for millennial pink (“I think we were a little bit ahead of that”), but she thinks that the colour trend has made now the perfect time to launch a rosé-based merchandise line – through @YesWayRose you can buy wine-inspired candles, beanies, nail polish and tote bags. Their range has been endorsed by celebrities such as Drew Barrymore, who the pair label their “guardian rosé angel”.
There certainly seems to be a push to rebrand rosé as a drink for more carefree types, and even poke fun at its more basic appeal. Josh Ostrovsky, a comedian known as the Fat Jew, says he “loves rosé more than any member of my biological family”. It makes sense, then, that alongside brothers David Oliver and Tanner Cohen (the pair behind Twitter’s @WhiteGrlProblem), Ostrovsky set up Swish Beverages to release White Girl Rosé, along with a variety of other attention-grabbing pink drinks. The trio believe their company differs from others in that, rather than “identifying a demographic from the outside and trying to market to them”, it built up a close, social media-led relationship with its audience and then simply provided them with what it knew they wanted. “Labels and branding are stuck in a major rut,” the trio say. “So many swirly words and old-timey illustrations. We think the rosé drinker is over that vibe; we certainly were. Taste is supremely important, but we want to give people more than just something to swirl around in their mouths and talk about minerals and notes and flint and liveliness.”
Certainly, Swish positions itself at some distance from the connoisseur end of the wine market; a recent Instagram post from Ostrovsky showed him pouring two cans of Babe Rosé With Bubbles into his mouth, above the caption: “Happy July 4th I’m crushing cans of rosé and eating smoked meat and doing nude cannonballs, which is exactly how George Washington would have wanted it right?”
So, does this explain the recent rosé craze? Is it all driven by millennials who want something that looks cool while they ride an inflatable unicorn in a pool with their mates?
Not entirely. Rosé might not come with the intimidating baggage of red and white wines, but its current popularity with casual drinkers seems to be matched by an upturn in those taking it seriously, too. The Wine Society, for instance, has started stocking rosé not just from traditional countries such as France, Spain and Italy, but also Greece, New Zealand, South Africa and England, which suggests there’s a worldwide desire to make quality pink wines. Charles Cutteridge, a buyer at Majestic, says its bestsellers are as likely to be premium wines as they are budget bottles. “Our customers now treat rosé as a serious wine,” he says. “This renewed interest in premium rosé has definitely attracted more quality winemakers and growers to the category. Previously, if a winery made a rosé, it was more likely to be an afterthought, something to complete the range. This is changing now and more and more wineries are being persuaded to invest in making high-end rosé wines, with price tags to match.”
In the London wine bar Noble Rot, the owner, Dan Keeling, is effusive about rosé’s charms. He pours out a crisp glass of 2016 Triennes from Provence, one of the bar’s best summer sellers, and points out that the typical strawberry fruit flavours are balanced with the same poise and restraint you would find in a quality white. The wine is the result of a collaboration between top Burgundy producers from Domaine de la Romanée-Conti and Domaine Dujac, and blends the red grapes cinsault, grenache, syrah and merlot. Keeling thinks that wines such as Triennes, or Domaine Tempier from the Bandol region, are very much “proper wines, made in an artisanal way, and with depth and complexity”. But he’s not ignorant to the fact that even the quality rosés go down rather quickly when we have a hot summer such as this one. Last year, Noble Rot headed to Wilderness festival – which mixes music with fine wine and food – armed with quality reds, whites and pinks. “It was really hot, so everyone was straight on the rosé – it sold out pretty much straightaway.”
Rosé, it seems, can be many things to many people. Perhaps it is this versatility that is the key to its success. Not just in the sense that it appeals to wine drinkers of all stripes, but in the way that you don’t have to stress too much about it – it suits a variety of occasions, for example, and pairs with most foods fairly effortlessly. You can study it in depth, of course, but everyone I spoke to accepted that there are few things in life less intimidating than a glass filled with something pale and pink.
There is, however, one thing that does link all forms of rosé together, whether it’s factory-concocted fruit juice or a refined Tempier. “People think, because it’s pink, that it can be quite innocuous,” says Keeling. “But actually the grapes used are often these southern French varieties, which can be pretty high in alcohol. You have a couple of glasses by the pool thinking nothing of it, but if you’re not careful …”
It’s a timely reminder that a rosé hangover can still catch you out, no matter how seriously you take it.
(THE GUARDIAN)
