I write this as I steep in the post-show blues of the 2025 Australian Alternative Varieties Wine Show (AAVWS), which celebrated its 25th anniversary this year, I was fortunate enough to chair the rosé panel at the show. With the mainstay commercial varieties excluded — shiraz, grenache, cabernet sauvignon, merlot and pinot noir — it was far more diverse than a traditional show. There were unquestionably wines modelled on the currently popular, pale, dry Provençal style, but also many savoury, complex, spicy wines present alongside bright, crisp wines of every hue between white and red.

I assume readers are by now familiar with the spectacular rise of Provençal rosé, a trend which single-handedly established and entrenched the commercial might of today’s rosé market. Synonymous with modern, fashionable rosé, it sparked imitators across the globe eager to tap into the rich vein of demand and feed off the region’s runaway success. While rosé predates this explosion of Provence, it is the mass, refreshing appeal and slick marketing of rosé as a premium, serious, dry wine which has launched the category. In short order it replaced the old image of sickly sweet, hot-pink rosés, which were restrictively seasonal and often entry-priced, with a cool, sophisticated, if manufactured, luxury.

Looking inward at New Zealand’s wine industry, rosé production is overwhelmingly based on pinot noir, which makes sense since it is our most widely planted red variety. But the grape’s naturally high acidity and berry flavours make it more difficult to make the delicately crisp but not acidic Provençal style, and most wines tend towards an off-dry to noticeably sweet, strawberries-and-cream rosé. That hasn’t stopped Kiwi winemakers from honing their craft, trying to capture some of the dry, vinous freshness of the style through experimentation.

The most evident change arrived in the vineyard. Previously, much rosé was viewed as a by-product of winemaking, but those taking it seriously started to make changes in viticulture, growing grapes specifically for rosé production. Some also incorporated other grape varieties, including white grapes (similarly to Provence), though in the case of Aotearoa we use varieties we have available instead of clairette or vermentino. Two Rivers’ Isle of Beauty is a classic example, using a blend of pinot with syrah and viognier.

Rosé archetypes are a result of more than just grape variety, however, and are strongly dependent on winemaking techniques, too. The crisp, pale and dry style comes from a highly technical process, with carefully protected direct-pressed juice that has picked up only the faintest hue, fermented under very controlled and cool conditions to preserve the freshness and purity of delicate aromas and balanced on every front to achieve its dry, powdery-smooth finish. This base can be enhanced through expressions of site and finely tuned complexity from ageing in different vessels and for varying lengths of time to achieve the exact level of desired development.

Another reasonably popular method is saignée, a technique sometimes maligned as a tool for making ‘by-product’ rosé by ‘bleeding’ juice from a vat which then continues fermenting as red wine. But the technique covers a broader range than just taking the lightest fractions of a red ferment, going all the way up to a short maceration of crushed grapes, as is common practice in making Tavel AOP. Longer skin contact and skin-macerated or fermented wines occupy the progressively darker and more structured strata of rosé, right through to cerasuolo styles, thus overlapping with the emerging category of chilled light reds.

Some new-wave producers are also blurring the lines between rosé and amber wines by applying this technique to ferments that include both red grapes (as rosé) and white grapes (technically amber wine).

Premium Provence rosé has become so successful it has a chilling effect on wine lists. Many global fine-wine programmes can meet the market without needing to offer diversity. As a result, scores of them are dominated by ubiquitous international luxury brands such as Minuty, Château d’Esclans/Whispering Angel, Miraval and Domaines Ott — the vinous equivalents of airport luxury duty-free shops. In itself this wouldn’t be an issue, but many of these same programmes do not have well-developed or deep rosé offerings, so there is little to drink in pink beyond these well-worn names.

Thankfully, we are starting to see the market mature and exhibit natural fragmentation as the category becomes more established, allowing a broader range of styles to find their place. Locally, this includes delicious wines made from the few Italian varieties we have, exemplified by Chateau Garage or Halite’s cerasuolo-like Ruby. There are also exciting Tavel-inspired wines such as Love Letters by A Thousand Gods, and savoury rosés such as Jules Taylor’s The Jules or Easthope Family’s Rosé.

This summer, broaden your rosé horizons by looking further than the pale; I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised.