It's still just 1.5% of the U.S. wine market, but its sales (by volume) grew 53% in 2017. Who's driving the growth? Exactly who you'd expect. 40% of rosé drinkers are women between the ages of 21 and 34, and rosé does best in cosmopolitan, coastal cities. (The NYC area accounts of a full quarter of all imported rosé consumption!) The drink is helped by its Instagrammability and its strong association with summer. Consumers can't wait to crack open their first bottle of the year -- and post about it! (NB: Ironically, I had rosé with dinner last night, so the summer association doesn't hold firm.) If we look to France for a benchmark, rosé still has plenty of room for growth. There, it's more popular than white wine, accounting for ~30% of total drinking. Needless to say, the French drink rosé year-round. (Despite a much smaller population, they get through nearly twice as much stuff as the United States.)
Some background: rosé's star status is pretty new. Just a few decades ago, when people thought "pink wine," they thought "white zinfadel." Some people love it, but it's definitely not classy -- it has no place on a nice restaurant's wine list. Things changed in the 90s and 00s, when photographs of celebrities sipping rosé in France invaded travel magazines. Rosé became a staple of fancy parties, particularly in the Hamptons. (For some amusing reading, check out the stories about the great Hamptons rosé shortage of 2014.) And then, of course, came social media. It's not just the beautiful pink hue that earns rosé followers, it's also the ease of coining catchy hashtags ("yes way, rosé" and "rosé all day" are two popular examples). On social media, rosé is emblematic of a carefree life of travel, picnics, and pool parties. An aura of status, for way less than a bottle of Champagne? No wonder it's a hit, especially among millenials.
So, should you be launching a rosé brand for your final project? Well, the game is good, but the field is crowded. The growth of rosé's popularity in the U.S. is continuing strong, and domestic brands are making headway against French imports. But in a category that saw almost 400 new SKUs introduced last year, it could be hard to stand out. Novelty or a major celebrity endorsement might be the only way to cut through the noise.
Sources:
- https://www.forbes.com/sites/rebeccalerner/2017/08/09/rose-still-on-the-rise-in-the-u-s/#764a89b453d7
- https://vinepair.com/wine-blog/7-maps-charts-explain-rise-rose-in-america/
- https://www.thrillist.com/drink/nation/rose-wine-instagram-obsession
- https://www.purewow.com/food/rose-wine-trend-history
- https://www.wineindustryadvisor.com/2018/05/21/domestic-rose-gain-market-share-french
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