What if we have too much rose?

I enjoyed everyone's presentations on Thursday, and - like Becca - found Michael very thoughtful and engaging. 

As I sat there listening to his statistics on Rosé and Frosé, and watched as numerous teams shared their new twist on the beverage (cans, juice boxes etc), I found myself wondering if this was a bubble waiting to burst. If so, when would the bubble burst and what would the producers do with all that excess wine?

A quick google search suggests that most consumers use their leftover wine in food; they marinate meat in it, poach pears in it, bake desserts, create vinegar/sauces/reductions... you get the idea. However, producers would arguably have a tougher time adopting a similar strategy. Creating a new food product in-house would mean building up new production facilities, and launching new branding activities. For wine producers without a presence in grocery, this would arguably require new sales and distribution capabilities as well. Even creating a new food product through a joint venture would be problematic, as it would require them to establish partnerships with a new set of food companies with whom they may never have worked.

One interesting article I stumbled on spoke about Gose - a pale yellow to deep gold beer that is slowly gaining popularity in craft beer circles. According to the article, this beer - unlike its other cousins -pairs really well with rosé to form (you guessed it), Gosé. This drinks surprisingly well in winter (or so the article claims!). If rosé were ever to hit a saturation point, I wonder if there would be an opportunity for thoughtful rosé producers to quickly create a new beverage in partnership with some of their craft beer cousins. This would save them a lot of the time and effort they would otherwise have needed to put into branding and distribution, since the responsibility would arguably lie with the craft brewery instead. 

For wineries like Long Meadow Ranch that sell food supplies in addition to wine, and deliver a surprise with each wine club shipment, another possibility would be to create packaged sauces and marinades with the leftover wine. They could then include that as the bonus item of the next shipment, and use this as an opportunity to delight customers.

That said, I hope rosé doesn't go out of style any time soon. I for one am still looking forward to a few more summers of #roséallday.

Roségence

Class on Friday made me realize that I have no idea why the rosé craze has grown so much. I am fully a part of it (a lover of rosé who has liked a million photos of someone in sunglasses, on a swan float, with a glass), but I couldn’t tell you why I love it absent of all of its status as a fun, summer, Millennial drink. So what has made it the craze it is?

Pantone selects, sometimes years in advance, a “color of the year” (fun fact – I used to work at Sephora and the office dress code, Monday through Thursday, was that we could only wear red, white, red, grey or the Pantone of the year). In 2016, for the first time, Pantone selected two colors of the year: serenity (aka baby blue) and rose quartz (aka, Millennial pink).

The pale pink color of rosé, and that being the color of a generation, is certainly a huge contributor of the rise of rosé’s popularity. Wine makers are certainly responding, where pink wine used to be something only made as an afterthought, it is now being produced with the same quality considerations and nice whites and reds. However, with rosé becoming a category of its own (e.g., “I’m not ordering a chardonnay, or a cab, but a rose”), I think this this is also emblematic of a new trend we’re seeing in “inconspicuous consumption.” The big labels of the 90s and 2000s are very rare to see anytime, and those that are the taste makers are wearing things that are totally unidentifiable outside of those in the know (e.g., Allbirds – there is basically no labels, and are only really identifiable if you already know the brand).

Finally, a question I’m still left with is something I learned from a trip to Darcie Kent Vineyards (the amazing Amanda Kent’s family vineyard – where she led our tasting!). Referring to wines by their varietals is much more of a new world concept, versus referring to wines by their region (e.g., a Bordeaux) is more common for old world wine. I wonder if “rosé” is at all a foreshadowing of the integrating of these two worlds, or if it really is just all about the color.