Build a Better Rosé Selection on Your Wine Menu

Mar. 6, 2020

The popularity of rosé has proven to be no fad. It’s clear that it’s here to stay.

During the last four years, the rosé category grew from $151M to $573M, and in the last year alone jumped double digits in sales and volume, according to Nielsen. While sales typically soar in the warmer months, don’t set the category aside come fall because rosé sales also spike around Thanksgiving and the winter holidays.

“New wine drinkers might gravitate to rosé because it’s trendy to drink pink, but more seasoned wine drinkers are drinking more rosé because the options available today are really good and approachable,” said Christopher Rowell, Breakthru Beverage Wine Educator. “Rosé is dry and crisp like a sauvignon blanc, refreshing and drinkable like a pinot grigio, and with aromas and flavors like a light summer red. What’s not to like? Even if rosé’s growth tapers off, I believe the positives will sustain the category for the long run.”

The Three Core Styles

As a baseline for getting your rosé selection started, you should have these three styles on your shelves or menu:

Classic Provencal style: France’s first wine region, a must-have on your list
Rosé of pinot noir: attracts pinot noir fans
Rosé of cabernet sauvignon, syrah or another full-bodied red: for those looking for a fuller, richer style

“If your concept really needs a sweet pink, like a white zinfandel, make sure to list that as a blush wine,” said Rowell. “It took a long time for people to get into rosé, so we don’t want to confuse them by serving a sweet blush wine from the 80s and saying it’s a rosé.”

As a reminder, color has nothing to do with the sweetness. It’s all about the thickness and darkness of the grapes and how long the grape skins touch the juice. Rowell also suggests mixing up the pigments so your color offering doesn’t look so homogeneous.

If you’d like to take your wine program to the next level and add more rosés, vary it out by region.