Is our love affair with pink wine over?

Just 8% of searches at last month's London International Wine Fair (LIWF) were for rosé and none of the attending supermarket buyers registered a single search for the pink stuff, research by TastingBuddy shows.

"Given rosé's phenomenal growth in the past few years I find that surprising," said Matthew Dickinson, commercial director at wine agent Thierry's.

"There was a big push last year with a couple of the big retailers adding quite a few rosé lines so perhaps there is a feeling that they've gone as far as they can. Many of the sales, after all, come from just one country, California, and just two styles, White Zinfandel and White Grenache, so there's little point just adding in other styles consumers aren't going to buy."

Dan Jago, Tesco category director for beers, wines and spirits, confirmed growth in the rosé sector was slowing down, although the category was still in rude health and remained a priority for the retailer, he said.

"We added 40 new rosés less than a year ago so I'd have been surprised to find my team looking for more before we've had a good chance to see how they are performing," he said.

Future growth in the category was likely to come from increased penetration, said Jago, with more consumers buying rosé this year compared with last. "We are seeing growth in areas outside of California, with Chile and Spain doing well but it isn't as branded an offer as California and suffers a little from that."

Asda also confirmed rosé remained a focus. "There are still massive opportunities for growth and development," said a spokesman.

Some 5,000 trade members used TastingBuddy's online catalogue to search for wines during this year's LIWF. Popular searches included lower-alcohol, French and Italian wines while Sauvignon Blanc, Pinot Noir and Cabernet Sauvignon were the most popular grape varietals.

Topics