Why Rosé Remains the Drink of the Season

In the 14th century, when the Catholic Papacy relocated from Rome to Avignon in southern France, the papal cellars were stocked with two wines above all others: Châteauneuf-du-Pape and Tavel, a deep, structured rosé from the Rhône Valley. King Philip IV had already declared Tavel his favourite wine a century earlier. King Louis XIV followed suit in the 17th century. Ernest Hemingway, who had less in common with the Popes than one might hope, drank it too. The point is this: rosé has never needed defending. It has simply always been there, outlasting the trends built around it.

The Greeks planted the first grapevines in Provence approximately 2,600 years ago and were already making pink wine using early skin-contact methods. The Romans refined the practice, treating light pink wine as a drink of the wealthy while darker, heavier wine went to soldiers and labourers. Winemaking in Provence continued through the Middle Ages, when monks produced rosé to fund their monasteries, and the wines carried a reputation for luxury among European nobility that would last centuries. In 1936, Tavel became France's first and, to this day, only AOC dedicated exclusively to rosé production. The category, in other words, is not a recent invention dressed up in pale pink packaging.

Why It Never Actually Left?

Rosé accounts for roughly 10 percent of all still wine consumed globally today. Global exports reached 10.8 million hectoliters in 2023, worth approximately €2.5 billion (approximately Rs. 22,500 crore). The global rosé wine market was valued at $4.21 billion (approximately Rs. 35,200 crore) in 2025 and is projected to reach $5.78 billion (approximately Rs. 48,300 crore) by 2029, growing at a CAGR of 8.2 percent. Provence alone contributes 40 percent of France's rosé production and 6 percent of the world's total volume. Exports from the region have increased by nearly 500 percent over the past 15 years.

France accounts for 33 percent of global rosé production, followed by Spain at 21 percent, Italy at 11 percent, the United States at 8 percent, and South Africa at 5 percent. Over 30 percent of wine drinkers globally now favour rosé, and the category has done something remarkable in recent years: it has broken free of its seasonal ceiling. Long positioned as a summer drink, rosé is increasingly consumed year-round, particularly among younger drinkers. Gen Z participation in the rosé category grew from 46 percent to 70 percent in a five-year period, which is not a statistic the wine industry is taking lightly.

The Luxury Pivot

Château d'Esclans, located between Cannes and Saint-Tropez, built its Whispering Angel into the world's most recognised rosé brand under Sacha Lichine before Moët Hennessy acquired it in 2019. Lichine also created Garrus, widely considered the most expensive Provence rosé in the world. Château Miraval, the Provence estate owned by Brad Pitt, produced a rosé that routinely sells out within hours of release. Domaine Ott, one of Provence's oldest estates, produces structured, cellar-worthy rosés that challenge the category's reputation for being unserious. The celebrity rosé is now its own sub-genre, with Post Malone's Maison No 9 and Sarah Jessica Parker's Invivo X joining the category, each targeting a consumer who buys lifestyle as much as wine.

Luxury has always been native to Provence. Saint-Tropez and Cannes are in Provence. The Riviera has been in Provence since long before it became shorthand for excess. What changed in the last two decades is that the luxury associations of the region travelled with the bottle, globally. A pale pink Provençal rosé is now as legible a status signal at a Mumbai rooftop dinner as a bottle of Champagne.

What to Actually Drink

For the uninitiated: not all rosé is made the same way. The direct press method, used primarily in Provence, involves crushing red grapes and removing the skins almost immediately, producing the pale, delicate wines that have come to define the category's high end. The saignée method, more common in regions producing fuller-bodied styles, involves bleeding off a portion of juice from a red wine fermentation, resulting in a deeper colour and more pronounced fruit. Tavel, the Rhône AOC that started all of this, uses longer skin contact of 12 to 24 hours and produces wines closer in structure to a light red, with genuine aging potential.

The grapes vary by region. Provence favours Grenache, Cinsault, Syrah, and Rolle. Tavel works primarily with Grenache and Cinsault. Spanish rosados lean on Garnacha and Tempranillo. Italian rosatos draw from Sangiovese in Tuscany and Negroamaro in Puglia. Each produces a different expression of the same idea: that red grapes, handled with restraint, can make something neither red nor white but entirely its own.

In India, access to quality rosé has expanded significantly through specialist importers and premium bottle shops across Mumbai, Delhi, and Bengaluru. Whispering Angel retails at approximately Rs. 4,000 to Rs. 4,500 for a 750ml bottle at select outlets. Château Miraval's Provence rosé sits in a similar price band. Both are reasonable entry points into what is, at its best, one of the most food-friendly wine categories in existence: low tannin, high acidity, and a range of flavour from mineral and citrus to ripe stone fruit and dried herbs, depending on where and how it was made.

The season, as it turns out, is just an excuse. The drink has been here all along.