Rosé wine: Move over red, white and sparkling – this summer belonged to pink booze
Sparkling wine has been stealing the show in the UK's drinks scene as the new high-flier, but rosé wine has been the true winner of this summer's heatwave as sales of the pink stuff doubled.
Marks and Spencer has reported a 100 per cent increase in its sales of English-produced rosé offerings, with its Chapel Down Sparkling Rosé growing by 200 per cent compared to last summer and M&S' English Pinot Noir Rosé, produced in the Norths Down in Surrey, growing by 103 per cent.
The boom in pink wine has been driven by trends such as frosé – freezing rosé with lemon juice and sugar to create a grown-up slushy masterpiece – and brosé, where men have taken to social media to admit their love for rosé.
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M&S winemaker Sue Daniels said:
Rosé is made for summer days and celebrations in the sunshine, and people are enjoying exploring the varying styles the wine has to offer. English wine is going from strength to strength and as we prepare for an Indian summer sales of English rosé in particular are flourishing.
It’s fantastic that rosé being produced by English vineyards is being discovered and celebrated as part of the English wine revolution, and it proves that the excitement around our home-grown wine goes beyond sparkling, red and white.
The end of August heatwave previously pushed up Waitrose's rosé wine sales by 65 per cent in one week, while over the summer rosé sales increased by 104 per cent over the summer, the Guardian reported.
M&S has also said rosé's popularity is part of a "larger English wine sensation", as the retailer has registered a 74 per cent boom in English wine sales this year.
In 2015, the English wine industry uncorked another bumper year, as 37 new wine producers and vineyards opened.