Rose season 2022 preview

This year should be better than last, but still expect higher prices and supply snafus

Two years of pandemic-related supply shortages should ease a little as we approach the start of 2022’s rose season. The blog’s 15th annual rose post will run on May 26 to mark the occasion.

Which is the good news. The bad news? Expect to pay more for your favorite pink wine – not a lot more, but just enough to notice the price increase.

I talked to a variety of retailers and importers over the past couple of weeks, and that was pretty much the consensus. Among their thoughts:

• Shipping remains an issue. One rose sample, which I always get around the beginning of April, won’t ship until the end of this month. “It’s still definitely not normal,” says Charles Bieler, whose roses include blog favorites Charles & Charles from Washington state and the French Bieler et Fils Sabine,

• Most of what we do get will arrive over the next couple of months, and that will be that, says Todd Nelson, vice president of marketing and PR for importer Winesellers, Ltd., which handles France’s Mont Gravet, another blog favorite. “When the brands are sold out, they’ll be sold out,” he emailed me. “Fewer brands will bring in late arrivals.”

• Prices will be higher, said almost everyone — $10 wines up to $12, $12 wines up to $14, and so forth. Interestingly, says Nelson, roses costing $20 and more haven’t fared as well over the past couple of years, and it looks like producers won’t make as many at those prices.

• Why higher prices? Inflation, certainly, as well as glass and cardboard shortages (used for wine boxes). There’s also a sense, one California producer said, that demand has increased for cheaper grapes from high-end producers, who are trying to cut costs. Which, ironically, means higher prices for $10 wines, since that raises the price of the cheaper grapes used to make those wines.