Imported Rosé Continues its Roll

by Alison Wellner (RSS feed)
Nov 14th 2009 at 2:03PM

I've always liked rosé, but up until a few years ago, its resemblance to wine coolers made people who weren't wine-confident feel uncertain about whether ordering it would make quite the right impression.

No more. Rosé seemed to be everywhere this past summer, and now The CIVP/Provence Wine Council has released statistics that adds weight to that perception. From mid September 2008 to mid September 2009, U.S. retail sales of imported rosé wines priced $12 and above grew 11 times faster by volume than total table wine sales.

The CIVP/Provence Wine Council is extra happy about this, first, because France accounts for more than a quarter of worldwide rosé wine by volume, and Provence is the leading rosé producing region in that country, and second, because consumers appear to be buying more expensive bottles. Sales of imported rosé wines at the $12 level and above grew by 28.4%, seven times faster than the 3.7% increase for total table wine dollar sales in the past year.

(Oh and in case you're wondering, CIVP stands for the Conseil Interprofessionnel des Vins de Provence, which is loosely French for "Provence Wine Council".)

Tags: rose, wine