Every Rosé has it's ...

August 14, 2018 10:21 AM

Somewhere along the way a rosé company might realize your restaurant is popular or has some buzz, particularly around the wine program. They might stop by, drop off a business card, send an email, and hint that they’d make it worth your while to add their wine to the list. A lot of these deals span the gray area of ethics, from direct cash incentives to trips, dinners, sporting game tickets, complimentary product, etc. Anything to get an edge. There are only so many slots on a wine list and oh-so-many wines out in the world. (Bon Appetit)

"Good looks have helped rosé overcome its once-bad reputation: Until recently, it was considered the gauche pink-headed stepchild of the wine world, conjuring hangovers of too-sweet white zinfandel. But today, it’s a top seller at restaurants and liquor stores, and a $258 million industry, according to Nielsen." (NY Post)

"We are now deep into rosé season, and by season, I mean the rest of our lives. We have also acquired a new summer rite. Each year, a number of daring publications venture the rather interesting question, “Have we hit peak rosé?” only to provide the thrilling answer, which I will summarize for you here: No." (Eater)

There are only 8 Things You Need to Know About Rosé, according to Buzzfeed in 2013.

Rosé is turning up in wine gummies, hard cider, beer, vodka, and probably other things. I fully expect rosé Oreos before the summer is out.

(Brosé, previously.)

posted by gauche (48 comments total)

A lot of these deals span the gray area of ethics, from direct cash incentives to trips, dinners, sporting game tickets, complimentary product, etc.

Are these sorts of things considered unethical in the restaurant world? I get that they're bad if you're a doctor or a public servant, but where's the conflict of interest if you're a restauranteur?
posted by Anticipation Of A New Lover's Arrival, The at 10:39 AM on August 14, 2018 [9 favorites]

Wine is such a wacky industry, niches within niches within... Guys it's fermented juice. Special juice that no one will touch unless the expert du jure gets paid off to rant in one or two prestige magazines, then it's new and more special. (I like wine but the faldorall is just too wacky)
posted by sammyo at 10:40 AM on August 14, 2018 [5 favorites]

Perhaps if the one making the decisions and receiving the kickbacks is not the owner, Anticipation?

I don't know if I've ever had rosé, honestly. Maybe this weekend, thanks for the post!
posted by ODiV at 10:42 AM on August 14, 2018

Jesus Christ. What a load of nonsense. This is a prime example of media eating its own tail. rose Rose ROSE! Last week rose was the new hotness, this week it`s overdone. Hey Bon Appetit, I know you want to be on the cutting edge of hipness, but being the first to declare things over is not the way. And you know what other business uses incentives and gifts to encourage clientele? EVERY OTHER FUCKING ONE.

I drank rose in the summer for the past twenty years, I`ll do so for the next 20.
posted by Keith Talent at 10:46 AM on August 14, 2018 [2 favorites]

ctrl-F bandol.

no bandol? fail.

Bandol rose is one of the great wines - and gustatory experiences - of the world.

brose shmose. i will fight you
posted by lalochezia at 10:48 AM on August 14, 2018 [4 favorites]

but being the first to declare things over is not the way

Did I miss something in the article?
posted by knownassociate at 10:49 AM on August 14, 2018 [3 favorites]

For restaurants and Hamptons hot spots seeking to bring in a crowd,

Huh? Hamptons hot spots? Is this lifted from the NY Styles section?

Not a fan of Rose. More generally, not a fan of drinking overpriced wine in restaurants. The markup means you are probably paying too much to have mediocre wine anyways.
posted by vacapinta at 10:52 AM on August 14, 2018

Back in the 1970s, my mother used to keep a gallon jug of Carlo Rossi Rosé in the fridge and have a glass of it every evening while she and my father watched TV. Little did she know she was on the cutting edge of hip 45 years ago!
posted by briank at 11:02 AM on August 14, 2018 [9 favorites]

the fact that wine is a market where those doing the selling willingly exploit the uninformed masses and arent even ashamed of it makes it pretty easy for me to opt out. im with vacapinta that it sucks paying obscene prices and getting a total mixed bag of results, im usually out for drinking wine in restaurants (unless someone else is paying which makes the value calculation a lot less relevant).

seriously, though, i feel like the "we dont make shitty wines" end of the market is taking advantage of the obvious influx of crap thats 99.99% marketing budget by just raising their prices (perhaps not at the importer/maker level but certainly in restaurants). Recently tried our a new and trendy neopolitan pizza place in NYC (una pizza napolitana) and the cheapest single glass available on their list, in a pizza spot, was $17.
posted by Exceptional_Hubris at 11:03 AM on August 14, 2018

A lot of these deals span the gray area of ethics, from direct cash incentives to trips, dinners, sporting game tickets, complimentary product, etc.

Are these sorts of things considered unethical in the restaurant world?

It's not the restaurant industry, per se, but the alcohol one. Every state has its own byzantine laws about how the alcohol industry is regulated. Where I live, in North Carolina, much of this stuff is straight up illegal. Everyone does it anyway, mind you, but it's not legal.
posted by something something at 11:09 AM on August 14, 2018 [4 favorites]

The trend of hard ciders labeling a variety as rosé when 99% of them are just adding hibiscus and some other tea like ingredient (sometimes actual green tea) annoys the hell outta me. That's like calling your cider merlot cause you added a plum. Ugh.

Anyways. Rosé, like anything in wine, is all about the particular one you are drinking. There's no sweeping generalization to be made. In the same way that riesling can be anything from cloyingly sweet dessert wine to gasoline smelling Mosel to dry as a bone Fingerlakes, rosé is not a monolith. There's lots of different methods to making it, you can use all sorts of varietals, and you can do all the same stuff that folks do to wine to change its character, e.g. whole cluster, malo, oak, etc etc etc.

Bandol is usually pretty good. Like many Provencal wines, it's pretty delicate. If I'm okay with something fuller bodied, Tavel has a special place in my heart (the only rosé-only DOC in france) because of a book I read once. There are some really fun pet nat rosés out there these days (and if you are someone that enjoys complaining about wine culture and trends, you'll love to go make fun of pet nat hipsters) which is fine with me, I'll drink your share. Some full bubbly rosés are also awesome. I am fond of Jura wines generally, and have had some mighty fine rosé cremants.
posted by lazaruslong at 11:09 AM on August 14, 2018 [11 favorites]

Are there really only so many slots on a wine list? Somebody should be working on the problem of wine-list scalability.
posted by Flexagon at 11:09 AM on August 14, 2018 [1 favorite]

I guess this might be monocle-popping to a certain set, but it's common enough in beer that Massachusetts levied a $2.6m fine against one distributor last year.
posted by uncleozzy at 11:10 AM on August 14, 2018 [3 favorites]

Are there really only so many slots on a wine list? Somebody should be working on the problem of wine-list scalability.

Its not the list that is the problem, you have to store all the wine too (and in sufficient quantities that your list isnt always 75% out of stock).
posted by Exceptional_Hubris at 11:12 AM on August 14, 2018 [6 favorites]

. Hey Bon Appetit, I know you want to be on the cutting edge of hipness, but being the first to declare things over is not the way.

That's not really what the first article is saying at all. It's about underhanded marketing by big companies with a crappy product--towards the end there's a rally for smaller and quality producers. The author wrote an entire book on rose, after all, I am guessing she really likes it!
posted by epanalepsis at 11:15 AM on August 14, 2018 [4 favorites]

gallon jug of Carlo Rossi

I grew up in a Casa de Carlo as well. It seemed to come into its own after the country moved on from those widemouth Paul Masson carafes.
posted by thelonius at 11:15 AM on August 14, 2018 [2 favorites]

Rosé can be a real mixed bag. I love a cold, bone dry rosé, but concede that that most of them are too sweet and too fruity for my palate. Still, if I can get a nicely dry one with good acidity, it's a great wine for everything from chicken and pork to fish and seafood, and even works with simple grilled beef if the accompaniments aren't too heavy.
posted by slkinsey at 11:33 AM on August 14, 2018 [4 favorites]

Detox and retox simultaneously with this superfood frosé bowl...

Ugh.

A chilled, dry rosé is one of the delights of summer and I choose to ignore the marketing orgy.

Back in the 1970s, my mother used to keep a gallon jug of Carlo Rossi Rosé in the fridge and have a glass of it every evening while she and my father watched TV. Little did she know she was on the cutting edge of hip 45 years ago!

Heh. I had grown up with parent who were on team Mateus, so it wasn't until a few years ago when I was introduced to some very dry rosé that I was like "Oh. This is nice." Like others, I had come to assume that rosé just meant "too sweet for me."

Paul Masson

I can't see mention of Paul Masson and not go here: Ahhhhhhhh. The. French....champagne.
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 11:36 AM on August 14, 2018 [10 favorites]

Imagine the changes those actors went through from the time their agents called with the news that they were going to be in a commercial with Orson Welles, to the day of filming.
posted by thelonius at 11:41 AM on August 14, 2018

Ahhhhhhhh. The. French....champagne.

On the one hand, this is sort of sad. But on the other hand, literal tears of laughter. The face he pulls during the first "Ahhhhh" is really remarkable. That moment could be from "Scooby Doo Meets Orson Welles" as he reacts to the ghost of Paul Masson.
posted by uncleozzy at 11:44 AM on August 14, 2018 [6 favorites]

These wines come from huge swaths of land, particularly in California and Provence, with “terroir” barely suitable for even vegetables.

It's always OK to enjoy your food and drink even at the exasperation of people who think they know better than you do of what you should eat and drink.
posted by lstanley at 11:47 AM on August 14, 2018 [12 favorites]

i can't drink any alcohol anymore and idk if i will ever be able to again but rose is usually pretty delightful and i miss it.
posted by poffin boffin at 11:51 AM on August 14, 2018 [1 favorite]

I like exploring new wines and found quite a few gems for under $20/btl at the store, but darnit if an ice-cold jug of Carlo Rossi Sangria isn't just the absolute best on a hot summer day.
posted by xedrik at 11:54 AM on August 14, 2018

Its not the list that is the problem, you have to store all the wine too (and in sufficient quantities that your list isnt always 75% out of stock).

Two words: drone delivery
posted by BungaDunga at 11:54 AM on August 14, 2018

I recall the period, from the late 1980's to the early '90s, where White Zinfandel, pioneered by Sutter Home, was a thing in California. I believe toward the end of that time some authority in the state government calculated that more White Zinfandel was being sold than could be accounted for by all the known plantations of Zinfandel grapes, to say nothing of grapes used to make actual Zinfandel red wine. In other words, no one knew what the hell was in those bottles.
posted by Insert Clever Name Here at 11:57 AM on August 14, 2018 [9 favorites]

MetaFilter: no one knew what the hell was in those bottles.
posted by gauche at 12:24 PM on August 14, 2018 [4 favorites]

I wanted to find out what was illegal about the beer company paying bars or giving discounts to carry their beer; the ruling was based on fair pricing laws:

even though discounts were generally legal, a longstanding prohibition on anti-competitive “price discrimination” — distributors offering the same quantity of the same products to different retailers at different prices — remained in force. Since Craft Brewers Guild paid some bars but not others that carried the same beers, he said, the company broke the law.

posted by ErisLordFreedom at 12:46 PM on August 14, 2018

Man, I hate selling wine. While I actually have a palate and could describe and more importantly appreciate a good wine and have even had some training and experience, selling any kind of wine at all was just... weird, and my experience was pretty much limited to local craft wineries with acceptable bottled table plonk peaking at 20-40 a bottle.

And from what I've experienced with wines above that it's basically like hifi audio equipment, in that what is impressive is how much more expensive it is, not how much better it qualitatively is. It's also a lot like art, in that there are limited quantities of a certain thing, and it's not like, say, scotch or whiskey in which it can be the same from year to year, because those grapes only grew once, that one single year, on some specific hillsides.

People! It's fermented grapes! You're drinking it because it has alcohol in it and, maybe, some flavor and some possible health benefits with the antioxidants and stuff. Plonk is ok. It's ok to like plonk and affordable wine.

If you're in a general cafe ordering a $5-10 glass and asking weird questions about the finer points of the wine from the minimum wage staff when your choices are less than a dozen, you're just being weird and snooty. Do you normally like Merlots or Malbecs? Get that. Want to choose between a dozen Malbecs? Go to a wine bar.

And honestly? Behind the scenes? Even at pretty snooty places, the industry folks will drink anything as long as it dissociates them from work for a few hours. I've seen snooty bartenders happily drink boxed wine.

Hell, a lot of those weirdos will drink straight Fernet or Cynar. If you ever see someone order a glass of Fernet (in the US at least) they're probably industry or ex industry, and they're probably bitter and jaded about it.

Also, I've learned I totally don't hate rosé, and it's weird. Back in the early 2000s I was in Austin, and I met this wiry Texan electrician who liked to sit on his porch and drink iced rosé and chain smoke, and I thought it was weird and gross and didn't even want to try it.

Now I do horrible things like put boxed rosé or chard in a steel water canteen with ice and soda water or even *gasp* La Croix and it's really good on a hot day sitting on the beach.

I have not yet reached the Fernet-drinking industry stage, happily.
posted by loquacious at 1:06 PM on August 14, 2018 [6 favorites]

I appreciate your perspective on your experience. Speaking as a 12 year (now 'retired') industry veteran, claims like:

People! It's fermented grapes! You're drinking it because it has alcohol in it and, maybe, some flavor and some possible health benefits with the antioxidants and stuff.

and

And honestly? Behind the scenes? Even at pretty snooty places, the industry folks will drink anything as long as it dissociates them from work for a few hours

and

Hell, a lot of those weirdos will drink straight Fernet or Cynar. If you ever see someone order a glass of Fernet (in the US at least) they're probably industry or ex industry, and they're probably bitter and jaded about it.

are putting a whole lot of words in a whole lot of people's mouths, and being kinda shitty about it. Please don't.
posted by lazaruslong at 1:28 PM on August 14, 2018 [7 favorites]

I can see this being unethical if the payments are going directly to the somm, since it's a conflict of interest in their duty to the restaurant. But honestly the only shocking things here are a) that it's only in a tiny corner of the wine industry and not the entire thing and b) the amounts of money involved are so small, I can't believe printing someone's wine list for them is compelling payola
posted by phoenixy at 1:34 PM on August 14, 2018

Literature -- it's just a bunch of words put in order! The Olympics -- just a bunch of people jumping around!

Wine FPPs always weirdly bring out a lot of defensiveness and kneejerk dismissals. Trust me, people who like wine know it's made from fermented grape juice.
posted by neroli at 1:38 PM on August 14, 2018 [8 favorites]

are putting a whole lot of words in a whole lot of people's mouths, and being kinda shitty about it. Please don't.

Sorry, I'm really snarky and pissed off at both the service/food/bar industry right now, and my local bar scene. I'm totally projecting and venting in a weird thread to do it in. It's reaching peak tourist season and burnout, and after a crap ton of emotional labor at work, it was capped off with multiple friends having breakdowns about toxic work environments and customers.

The Fernet thing is totally real, though.
posted by loquacious at 1:45 PM on August 14, 2018 [3 favorites]

I guess this might be monocle-popping to a certain set, but it's common enough in beer that Massachusetts levied a $2.6m fine against one distributor last year.

psst... the soft drink manufacturers do this too. Does anyone really think the store owners pay for all of those signs, menu boards, umbrellas, drink fountains, etc etc etc?
posted by JoeZydeco at 1:47 PM on August 14, 2018

I only really like drinking rose (can't get the accent on my phone). Red wine mostly tastes like burning. White is unpleasant in ways I don't have words for. I'm afraid I am not and will never be a wine person. But a nice, not-too-sweet rose is enjoyable to me, and there's often only one or two on a wine list. So bribe away I guess.

I choose wine based entirely on how pretty the label is.
posted by stillnocturnal at 1:48 PM on August 14, 2018

Now I do horrible things like put boxed rosé or chard in a steel water canteen

I guess I'm not sufficiently oenophile because I was imagining leafy greens stuffed into a canteen.
posted by pykrete jungle at 1:48 PM on August 14, 2018 [7 favorites]

It’s true that it’s very likely that someone ordering a shot of fernet or cynar is industry or industry adjacent. It’s not true that this always means they are bitter and jaded. I hear you on toxic work environments and burnout and peak tourist season can really suck. But we get enough stereotypes from the wealthier people we serve about industry workers being bitter jaded burnouts drinking anything to forget about work. We don’t need to perpetuate that shit from inside the house.
posted by lazaruslong at 1:58 PM on August 14, 2018 [5 favorites]

Yeah, as an industry-adjacent person who drinks Elisir Novasalus because Fernet Branca just. isn't. bitter. enough., I'm with lazaruslong.

Clearly wine pricing, and booze prizing overall, is such that price in no way equates to quality. This much more true with respect to wine than spirits, in my experience, since the people who buy premier cru Bordeaux as investment instruments ruined it for the rest of us. That said, there's a difference between "plonk" and "affordable wine." The trick is to know how to avoid one and find the other. My solution has been to gravitate towards lesser-known grapes and producers (e.g., verdicchio, nerello mascalese, cremant d'alsace, etc.) and to cultivate friends, shops and sommeliers that will reliably steer me towards those great bottles that are selling for a lot less than they should be.
posted by slkinsey at 2:01 PM on August 14, 2018 [2 favorites]

I like Fernet (one of these days I'll get around to making a t-shirt that reads "I SIP FERNET fear me"), I take my coffee black, and I prefer arugula and radicchio to butter lettuce. I've never bartended, I only worked in food service for one summer after high school, and I'm not particularly bitter or cynical.

Sometimes an amaro is just a bitter drink.
posted by Lexica at 2:16 PM on August 14, 2018 [6 favorites]

Just so you know, the world's best selling rosé forever is Mateus, which was allegedly Saddam Hussein's favorite tipple.

Also, Sir Elton is wrong to think Mateus rhymes with loose.
posted by chavenet at 2:28 PM on August 14, 2018

I guess this might be monocle-popping to a certain set, but it's common enough in beer...

psst... the soft drink manufacturers do this too.

Not to mention vodka, and whiskey, and energy drinks, and tequila in certain markets, run in certain others, and pretty much every other alcoholic drink option to some degree.

Stories like this always strike me as a little odd, in that they're breaking the wall between industry and consumers in a very "I am shocked- shocked- to find that gambling is going on in here!" kind of way. If this appears in a print issue of Bon Appetit, I wonder how many ads for rosé will accompany it.
posted by me3dia at 2:38 PM on August 14, 2018 [2 favorites]

I have not yet reached the Fernet-drinking industry stage, happily

come
join us
don't be afraid
(seriously it's fucking delicious over here)
posted by halation at 2:54 PM on August 14, 2018 [5 favorites]

quote:

You might know which brands I am talking about, the ones that sponsor huge parties in the Hamptons. They masquerade as luxury goods, with fun bottle shapes and cutesy names, but are simply bulk wines.

Uh, no, no I do not.
posted by zenon at 3:06 PM on August 14, 2018 [1 favorite]

Among our friends, Pierre Et Papa Rose is so popular that we somehow always have a bottle of it in our house, despite the fact that we have never purchased it and don’t drink it. It’s become like the background noise of wine, as normal as PBR is for beer. I don’t think it will be “over” I think we’ve permanently adopted it. It is pink, after all.
posted by mai at 4:08 PM on August 14, 2018

> restauranteur

This is a trifling thing, but I particularly like the word. The person in charge is a restaurateur, as in a restorer. Like an intoxicant is given by an intoxicator.
posted by lucidium at 4:16 PM on August 14, 2018 [5 favorites]

the rather interesting question, “Have we hit peak rosé?”

Actually I was aware of the marketing upswing of rose but a few days ago I noticed a sidewalk sign in front of a local swill vendor (there are fine local wine stores, not this one) with an attempted clever slogan along the lines of "get your rose now before it's all gone", the irony was amuse. Rather long ago I remember some really lovely french roses, the pragmatic oenophile's I've know were never averse to a nice rose on a warm evening. I do think the eater blog hit the cork on the head:

Rosé is alcohol, and if you drink it all day, you will eventually black out and wake up under a porch in Fair Harbor, and you will be covered in ticks.
posted by sammyo at 4:27 PM on August 14, 2018

Now I do horrible things like put boxed rosé or chard in a steel water canteen with ice and soda water or even *gasp* La Croix and it's really good on a hot day sitting on the beach.

I love the image of someone taking swiss chard and La Croix to the beach on a hot day.
posted by lollymccatburglar at 10:15 PM on August 14, 2018 [4 favorites]

I want to call out some bullshit in the first-linked article from Bon Appetit by Victoria James:

Yeast not only converts sugar to alcohol but also contributes to the final flavors. These commercial yeast strains attempt to mask subpar grapes by adding unnatural aromas to the wine ...

I don't know how the author imagines yeast obtaining unnatural compounds and putting them into wine, but it's not happening. These yeasts are not GMO (PDF certification from one of the largest suppliers) but instead are selected from wild yeast. It's one thing to acknowledge realities of large-scale wine production, but at least keep a grip on reality.
posted by exogenous at 10:55 AM on August 15, 2018 [3 favorites]

That Shacksbury rosé cider is very, very good. Dry enough, beautiful color, just all around pleasant to drink.
posted by fiercecupcake at 8:18 AM on August 20, 2018