09 Mar 2016 The rise of Brosé

With decades of gender-biased marketing to undo, the ‘Brosé’ phenomenon is taking over social media and inspiring new product launches to make pink wine the preferred pour of Millennial men.

Of course, in the world’s most established rosé market, France, men and women alike have been enjoying rosé for as long as can be remembered. But French appreciation for rosé is decades ahead of most other markets, where the category’s previously undesirable reputation was sealed by a majority of entry level brands selling cheap pink wine aimed squarely at women.

Rosé, in these markets, has been very deliberately positioned as ‘a girl’s drink’. However, now that rosé has rebooted its image, with more grapes, styles and price points broadening its appeal, that gender-specific marketing strategy needed turning on its head.

There probably couldn’t be a better time to do it. Modern, Millennial consumers pride themselves on open-mindedness and the rejection of old values, gender stereotypes chief among them.

Brosé in many ways seems the natural response to the ‘women who whisky’ phenomenon – and, where we have seen young women proudly joining whisky societies and ordering a Scotch on the rocks, we now see groups of male friends posting pictures of themselves enjoying a glass of pink on Instagram with the hashtag ‘#brosé’.

According to research by the Provence Wine Council, the US, Russia and Australia now have equal numbers of men and women drinking rosé, while in Brazil, there are more male consumers sinking the pink drink than female.

The Council also reports that exports of rosé to the US has seen growth in double digits for the past 11 years running, while a report by another large research firm in January this year found sales of home-grown US varieties had rocketed by 53%. The US is now the world’s second-biggest consumer of rosé, behind France, guzzling 3.2 million hectoliters of it in 2014.

In the last 12 years global rosé consumption has increased by 20%, while production has risen by 16% to keep up with increasing demand.

In the UK, sales of rosé have rocketed by 250% over the last 12 years and a staggering 750% in Sweden.

However France remains the world’s biggest lover of rosé, with pink wine accounting for almost one in three bottles consumed in the country.

Production of rosé in France has doubled in the last 12 years. 

Source: Wine Radar, the wine trends and innovation report from IWSR-Radius