“Will we have rosés in transparent bottles to sell this summer?”

fter an exceptionally sunny May, “there is real concern about market supplies of rosé”, claims Stéphane Friez, national manager of the Intermarché supermarket chain’s wine department in France. Friez, who is a group member based in Grazac, Haute-Garonne, has thirty years of experience but says that he has never known such pressure to secure supplies. Caused by the lack of transparent bottles, surging prices and lead times are jeopardising the balance between supply and demand. The chain has a heightened awareness of the challenges ahead – it also runs its own bottling facilities for Intermarché private label wines, Fiée des Lois, in Prahecq, Deux-Sèvres. “Deliveries are very random: we don't know what we're going to receive and when. I am being hit by unreasonable price hikes, which is a real worry”, says Friez.

Due to high demand and low supplies, “we have no more transparent bottles at the moment. We don't know what to bottle our rosé wines in for July”, adds Friez, who feels that the ultimate issue is: “Will we have rosé wines in transparent bottles to sell this summer?” In terms of alternative solutions, entry-level wines can be bottled in PET and the boxed wine range could be expanded... As for using green bottles, it’s a tricky issue: “Consumers find the colour of rosé very appealing and in green glass, the wines are less attractive”, explains wine merchant Allan Sichel, vice-chairman of the Bordeaux Wine Trade Council (CIVB). He reports seeing “colleagues compelled to bottle rosé wines in green glass. In the short term, you find solutions”. This last resort is one that many firms do not want to consider at this point. “We're going to do everything we can to avoid putting appellation wines and buyers’ own brands in green bottles. But it depends on what we receive, from both large and small operators”, says Friez, who fears the market may fall apart: “We don't know how customers will react...”