With weather improving everyday, pink wine is more and more visible on restaurant tables and in people’s homes. Is it the new wine color? For many years, in Europe, pink wines were considered as “non wines”, i.e. wines for people who didn’t know anything about wine. Then,  it was considered as the “wine for women”, i.e. wine being a man’s business, women could not understand what was good for them.  And then, surprise, in 2008, a study run by the International Associated Women in Wine Organization showed that women liked their wine red and tannic. The American market did not show much interest in the color, except for white zinfandel while young female Japanese professionals fell for pink Champagne, such as the gorgeous Brut Nature Zero Dosage Rosé by Drappier.

What is the situation now? The ambiguity of the color itself contributes to a lot of misapprehensions and misunderstandings. In the French tradition, for example, pink wine is traditionally a blend of several grapes, such as grenache, cinsault or mourvedre. In the US, the few pink wines I drank lately were very often blended from one single grape, mostly syrah or grenache. It happened that this year I received several French pink wines (we call them “rosés”) made from one single grape – one from syrah and the other one from grenache. I enjoyed the Syrah Rosé by Camas, also available in Bag-in-the-Box container. Ogier, the famous Rhone Valley wine producer, also made a traditional rosé blend, with 60% Grenache, 15% Cinsault, 15% syrah, 10% mourvedre sold in supermarkets, like the Camas brand.

The fact that blended rosés, very gastronomic and fine, are able to find room on the shelves of supermarkets along with a BIB Syrah rosé, means that the consumers’ tastes are evolving. More open to novelty,  French consumers are now ready and willing to explore a different road besides the famous “rosé de provence.”