Rose wine sheds its image as a sweet and colourful summertime tipple, with
runaway sales elevating it in status alongside rich reds and popular
whites.

BORNES LES MIMOSAS, FRANCE REUTERS -
Rosé wine has been a stalwart of the summer lunch table or the
pre-dinner 'apéro' for generations. 
    And for many wine lovers that's exactly where rosé should stay - a
colourful summer tipple that can never compete with the grand reds and popular
whites. 
    But changing tastes and improved production of rose is spurring a
global boom in sales of this light-hearted but increasingly serious wine.
    In France, sales of rosé are set to outstrip sales of white wine this
year and rosé will account for one in every five bottles of wine sold,
according to media reports.
    In the United Kingdom, sales of rosé wine are up about 30 percent this
year, according to trade magazine Off-Licence News, and one in ten bottles
sold in the UK this year has been pink in colour, up from up from one in
twenty three years ago. The U.S. is seeing a similar rosé renaissance. 
    The increasing presence of fine rosés on wine lists in chic Paris
restaurants, long the exclusive domain of grand French reds and whites,
underlines how far rosé has come.
    "There's a real change in the thinking about rosé. It used to be
for the barbecue or on the 'terrasse' or for holidays and festivals in the
sun," Virginie Morvan, purchasing manager at Chez Lavinia, a stylish
eatery in central Paris, told Reuters.
    "But now, wine growers are investing in making wine that can be
drunk at the table, even with meat," she said.
    Most of the boom in rosé sales can be attributed to radically improved
production methods. 
    Alain Combard, the owner of rosé-producing vineyards at Domaine Saint
André de Figuière in Provence, admits that there was a time when rosé wine
sometimes was simply surplus red wine and white wine mixed together.
    But now, he says, rosé production takes as much skill and attention as
the making of a classic red or white wine. 
    Red wine grapes are pressed and the skins and seeds are left to mix
with the juice for just a few hours, to give off colour but not the deep
tannins of a full red wine.
     "A good rosé is fruity but with some depth. It's a wine where
once you have a glass you say to yourself 'why not another?' It's a wine that
gives great pleasure," says Combard.
     Part of rosé wine's image problem until recently was its relatively
low price tag, which branded it as a low-class wine. Adding a few dollars to
the tab might well have helped boost sales in the world's bigger wine markets.

     In the USA, sales by volume of rosés priced at more than $8 a bottle
have risen nearly 50 percent this year, according to Nielsen, a market
research company.
    "Where there used to be a $10 plateau for rosé wines they're now
all the way up to $50," said Chip Hammack, director of K&L Wine
Merchants in Los Angeles.
    "They're catching on a lot in the Los Angeles area because a lot
of people go to the Cannes Film Festival and they get exposed to really good
rosé and they come back and look for it," he says.
     But there is concern that -- just like in the 1970s when sweet, blush
wines had their moment before fading into obscurity -- the current rosé
success story will be a passing fashion. 
     "I sort of always thought rose was a "de-classe" wine,
it was just not, you know..  I just think rose, I think cheap. These guys have
introduced us to some really nice ones. Especially in the summer when it's so
hot, it's really nice," said Shannon Beddell, a guest at a recent wine
tasting in Eagle Rock, California.
     If rose can maintain its new-found status as a wine of class that is
worthy of attention from wine lovers of all stripes, then rose growers can
look forward to successful years ahead - truly 'la vie en rose'.