Rosé is the fastest growing wine varietal in the United States, according to a new report – Through the Grapevine – released last week by Wine Access, a direct-to-consumer wine discovery platform. In 2015, one out of every 510 bottles sold on Wine Access was Rosé. Recently, that number grew to one out of every 36 bottles. The report was released in conjunction with a new Wine Access online wine store experience, which was designed to upend the wine industry and to make it easier and more enjoyable for Americans to discover wines they love.
The findings are based on Wine Access sales data regarding American wine buying habits over the last several years. In addition to the explosive nation-wide growth of Rosé, the report also found that Washington D.C. drinks more Rosé per capita than anywhere else in country, consuming eight times more of the light pink wine than the State of California.
“This report shows something we already know: Americans love wine and want to drink more of it,” said Benoit Vialle, CEO of Wine Access. “The problem is that, for the new generation of wine lovers, there is simply too much confusion in the wine buying process. We’re focused on bridging that gap by pairing advanced technology with wine knowledge from the most experienced team of wine experts in the industry. For the first time, we’ll be pairing extremely knowledgeable human expertise with machine learning to recommend wines. Our goal is to ensure that no one drinks another glass of wine they don’t like.”
Wine Access was originally founded in 1999 and has doubled the size of its staff in the past 6 months, with 50 employees working in the company’s Napa, San Francisco and Los Angeles offices. The company was acquired by Norwest Venture Partners in 2015 and launched the store today under a new management team. In addition to Vialle, who joined in May 2016, the team includes CTO, Thod Nguyen, the celebrated former chief technology officer of eHarmony, Chief Wine Officer, Matt Deller MW, one of 41 Master of Wine’s in the U.S., Sur Lucero MS, Master Sommelier, and Vanessa Conlin, VP of Wine and a current Master of Wine candidate.
The expert wine team hand picks all of the wines available on Wine Access through research and deep relationships with hundreds of local wine suppliers and importers globally. The Wine Access selection process is incredibly rigorous – ultimately the top 1 percent of wines tasted by the wine team are presented on the site. Every bottle is rated across more than two dozen dimensions, which include things like acidity and fruit intensity. This proprietary rating system allows users to better understand their personal wine preferences and powers the company’s machine-learning based profiling system. The result is a highly-curated wine store, featuring a diverse selection that allows customers to discover wines that are incredibly special, at a great value, and may not be available anywhere else. Over time, the website’s unique machine learning-based profiling feature will make smarter recommendations to ensure users love every bottle of wine they buy.
The data report is part of the company’s efforts to understand the needs of the modern wine consumer and to help them discover new wines they love.
Key findings from the data report include:
- Democrats drink more imported wine than republicans
- Twice as many blue states prefer imported wines over domestic wines. For example, a whopping 91 percent of the wine purchased in Alaska is domestically produced. Delawareans, meanwhile, prefer imported wine – it comprises 85 percent of the purchases made in that state.
- Pinot Noir and Red Blends dominate wine sales
- Americans are now drinking six times as much Pinot Noir and Red Blends as they were four years ago.
- The wine industry’s emerging producers have doubled since 2015
- Wine sales from discovery regions – Greece, South Africa, Chile, Germany and Peru – have nearly doubled since 2015.
- Rosé is the fastest growing wine in the U.S.
- In 2015, one out of every 510 bottles sold on Wine Access was Rosé. In 2017, that number grew to one out of every 36 bottles, which represents a 1,400 percent increase.
“This data represents the overall liberation of wine styles among U.S. wine lovers,” said Matt Deller MW, the chief wine officer at Wine Access. “It’s exciting to see that today’s consumers are leaving their comfort zones, becoming more adventurous and moving past mainstream varietals like Chardonnay and Zinfandel to embrace a broader range of wine styles like Rosé and Red Blends.”
To learn more about Wine Access or to download the full data report, please visit their website.
