The problem with rosé, and one retailer’s solution
Rosé is an important category, and everyone loves it. It has grown a lot of late. But it has a problem.
Everyone wants the latest vintage. As soon as it’s peak rosé time, which in the northern hemisphere is May, all people want is the fresh wine – the newly released wine of the previous vintage. And retailers have five months to sell this through, or risk holding stock that’s seen by the market as past its best. Come the following May, when the wine of the previous vintage is in full flow again, you don’t want to be sitting on the wine of the vintage before that.
One retailer’s solution in the UK (and I don’t know whether this is store specific, or general policy, and I have asked) is to mix up the 2023s and 2024s on displays, alternating the bottles. These pictures were from the Canary Wharf branch of Marks & Spencer. I guess the customers who care about having the latest vintage can just sift through and pick out the 2024s. The vintages are on the back label, and you have to look for them a bit, but the colour of the wine is a give-away.
Next year, when the 2025 vintage arrives, it will be quite hard to sell the 2024s and very hard to sell the 2023s.
