The Great Pink Wave: Worth Catching?

We talk a fair amount about wine culture and trends here on the crush pad. It’s endlessly fascinating to me (and hopefully to you, too) how a several-thousand year old beverage manages to make itself over, time and time again. Recently, we discussed the “hipster” natural wine movement (and why it’s really a good thing, I swear) but we perhaps failed to mention one of the most crucial, world-changing, era-defining and revolutionary wines which made the whole “approachable, affordable, fun, cool” thing possible for wine in the first place. I’m talking about rosé, baby. The pink drink. The great blushing hope. 

See, while natural wine was taking off in certain cutting-edge restaurants and risk-taking enotecas around the globe, a similar, but slightly less esoteric trend was growing up and taking the world by storm: Rosé season. The emergence of rosé as a summertime tour-de-force in the beverage market essentially centered around a great rebranding scheme, an oversupply of product, and a thirsty new generation who hadn’t heard of “blush wines” or white zinfandel. 

Rosé isn’t a new product- and certainly, when we consider “how” rosé is made, it seems likely that much of the red wine which ancient Romans and Greeks would have enjoyed (especially when watered-down, as was the customary preference) would have likely more resembled rosé in hue than it would the extra-macerated, oak-aged and heavily extracted big reds we find today. In the modern era, the big player in the 19th century and onwards would be Provence. The southern French seaside appellation has long produced light pink wines, crisp and refreshing, intended for the summering crowds who would gather at coastal resorts like Bandol and take in the local libations. Their quality and prestige on the world stage tends to go unrivalled, with some exception, to this day.

 But what if you couldn’t board a trans-Atlantic steamer and take your summers abroad?  For the American market,  the 20th century witnessed the emergence of consumer-friendly, easy-drinking rosés. According to sommelier Victoria James in her book Drink Pink: A Celebration of Rose, two brands can be hailed as innovators in bringing rosé to the masses. Mateus and Lancers both introduced inexpensive, sweet, slightly fizzy rosé, marketed heavily towards women, and enjoyed a fair share of the market through the 80’s. Their main competition would emerge with Bob Trinchero of Sutter Home wines, who, legend has it, accidentally “discovered” white zinfandel due to a stalled fermentation of a red wine. The rest, they say, is history. Sweet, cheap, best-forgotten history. 

For the remainder of the 80s and 90’s, little would occur to shake-up the popularity of white zinfandel as the pink drink of preference. It was accessible, affordable, fun, and “female-friendly.” And not for nothing, but “good” white zinfandel and sweet rosés are made today, and are lovely and enjoyable in their own right. There is a time and place for something pleasing and fruity. Nevertheless, huge commercial production didn’t exactly lend itself to innovation, authenticity or careful, eco-friendly winemaking practice. Things were ruled by a few big brands, and the great pink wave turned into a stagnant pool. That is until we reached the halcyon days of the 2010’s. 

A lot of things are happening in the 21st century for the American wine market. Largely, Americans are becoming wine drinkers. In 1998, the average wine gallons-per-resident consumed was about 1.95. By 2018, that number would reach 2.95 gallons per-person, with national consumption nearly DOUBLING from 466 million to 805 million during that same 20-year gap. The national thirst for wine was met with huge production increases and availability of major grocery-store brands like Yellow Tail and Barefoot, who’s business integration allowed them incredible market domination and saturation. Globalization and modernization methods brought inexpensive South American, European, Australian, and of, course, Californian wines to the table and consumers were faced with an impressive variety of not only inexpensive, but really pretty good wines. Culinary trends, travel, the democratization of “high culture” as something you could recreate in your Bon Appetit subscription, and popularization of wine writing, wine tasting, wine collecting, these all meant that suddenly, folks were saying, “hey, wine isn’t just for my rich cousin who knows a bunch of obscure French towns!” 

Long story short, wine was better, cheaper, and more accessible. All kinds of wines. For better and for worse. In the 2010’s one result of this popularization was a rekindling interest in  rosé. A refreshing summer beverage with general easy-drinking bona-fides and visual appeal,  rosé was primed for its debut on another increasingly HUGELY important world stage: social media. Never has a beverage been more perfectly ready for Facebook feeds and Instagram selfies. Reality-tv stars were often found drinking it (or throwing it in faces,) celebrities were buying up old French estates and releasing their own labels (Remember Brangelina’s Miraval?) and social-media influencers were joining forces to create labels like “White Girl Rosé,” a self-aware nod to the drink’s sudden appearance at every sorority party and bachelorette weekend. And for every “Rosé all day” sparkly tank top and “French Pool Toy” or other similar eye-catching, easy-breezy-fun label released, there was an increasing demand for the “authentic” stuff, as well. Wine shops in the Hamptons couldn’t keep up with requests for Bandol and other Provencal rosés, people were clamoring for Whispering Angel to such an extent that even Costco had to get into the game and start stocking cases of it on its shelves. (Whispering Angel is bad, by the way. It’s bad, ya’ll. Please talk to me I’ll get you something less expensive and better please, omg, please just call me you don’t have to live like this.)  Rosé, in short, became the “it” wine for those who wanted to “summer” in the best possible way. And the wine world saw plenty of opportunity to meet that demand. 

 Rosé is now made, increasingly, by more and more vineyards who in the past wouldn’t have bothered with the stuff. After all, it’s a bit of a “waste” of red grapes which could end up in more “refined”, expensive reds. That being said, it’s also an easy way to turn an investment into liquid cash pretty quickly. See, unlike some other wines, rosé is tailor-made for quick turn-around. Grapes are harvested in the fall, fermented and finished in the winter, and then bottled and shipped and ready by March, at the latest. They’re bought for usually $20 or less, in large quantities,(because the summertime crowd demands them) consumed immediately, and forgotten about until next year. For some consumers, they just have to be dry, lightly fruity, refreshing, and baby-pink. Most consumers don’t want think about it too much- that would be the opposite of what rosé is meant to do. It’s there for you to porch-pound, and then it, like the sweetness of high summer, fleetingly disappears. Only its hazy memory remains.  

But, once again, we hope not to merely dissect all of all the ways the wine world is oversaturated with pink wine and why that’s annoying. For the record,  I love rosé. I drink it all year long. When it’s good, it’s transcendently delicious. From a $11 screw-cap bottle to a $140 double-magnum of Domaine Tempier, there’s something of incredible virtuosity and pure joy to be found equally across the spectrum of these wines. Moreover, for many consumers, 

 rosé is an approachable entry-point to a winery’s other products which may be priced higher, or seem less accessible. The Corsican producer Yves Leccia makes incredible wines, but I’ll admit, his  rosé is the first bottle of his which I ever tried. And it’s phenomenal. The same goes for his neighbor Domaine Giacometti. See, that’s the thing---for many of the aforementioned reasons, people feel comfortable assessing a rosé; they know what they like, and they know if a given glass is doing that, or somehow missing the mark. More often than not, the main request is simply that the rosé be “not sweet.” PSA: Most rosé is dry. Certainly all the rosé I’ve bought and sold over the last 6 years has been. However, the national hangover from the sweet blush wines and white zinfandels which once flooded the market creates an understandable hesitancy to pick up just any rosé and trust it to be dry and refreshing. Moreover, they’re pink, and smell like strawberry, cherry, watermelon and candy. Again, we understand the concern. 

So after tracing all this back story and finding ourselves at the CUSP of rosé season, I’d be remiss if I didn’t dispel a few other rumors, point to a few regions and producers who’s stuff I think you’ll really like, and speculate as to the future of rosé (spoiler alert: it’s not going anywhere...but chilled reds and orange wines might start elbowing their way in, too.) Stay tuned for our next installment to find out why you shouldn’t trust the “color” of a rosé to tell you anything. I know, you thought light=dry. It’s okay. It’s all gonna be okay.