Ask the experts: Rosé

It’s the start of a new year and a new decade, so we’ve been asking some of Australia’s leading wine experts and retailers to share their views on the hottest wine trends in Australia this year.

Peter Nixon is the head of the Dan Murphy’s wine panel, and manages their international portfolio. He’s been with Dan Murphy’s for more than 10 years, and has previously judged for Decanter World Wine Awards in the UK. We spoke to him recently and he gave us his top pick in 2020: Rosé.

“International rosé sales in Australia are still in double-digit growth, though unlike northern Europe and Scandinavia, still a fair way behind white wine. This growth really kicked-off with southern French lightly colour salmon or orange-pink dry rosé about 5 years ago in the $10-20 price band, however there has been good growth over $20 with significant price stretch. 

“As a result Australian rosé has started to emulate the French style, becoming drier, more restrained, lighter in colour and palate weight - "lighter & fresher" is the new mantra - even in reds - Le Vin Soif  - roughly translating to "refreshing reds" was coined by the French more than a decade ago and includes minimally oaked lighter reds like Gamay (Beaujolais), Cabernet Franc (Chinon etc from Loire) etc.

“Aside from an evolution in local rosé styles, it is interesting to note that rosé seems to have more cross gender appeal to the Australian consumer than any wine style or grape-blend that has preceded it. Currently white wine (predominantly Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc) skews heavily towards female consumers and red wine (predominantly Shiraz from South Australia) skews heavily with males. 

“Rosé also brought a greater acceptance of lighter style reds (colour and weight) across the board. Colour now seen as a spectrum from rosé all the way to opaque big reds, rather than a case of black or white, light or dark. Ten years ago, Australian winemakers typically added "mega-purple" (grape skin extract) to lighter coloured examples of grapes such as Grenache and Pinot Noir to make them saleable - their light colour is now seen as a selling point.”