British drinks producer Fever-Tree has teamed up with one of the leading French rosé winemakers, Maison Mirabeau, in an attempt to dethrone ever popular Aperol Spritz and take a slice of it’s very lucrative market.
The mixers group, which has led a revolution in upmarket tonics over the last decade, will unveil a pale pink rosé spritz collaboration which is a combination of Fever-Tree’s raspberry and orange blossom soda and Maison Mirabeau’s Forever Summer rosé wine.
The launch was “driven by the desire for longer, lighter, refreshing serves perfect for easy summer drinking,” Fever-Tree chief executive Tim Warrillow told the Times.
This new drink is targeted at younger buyers with a lower alcohol by volume (ABV) target than traditional spirit mixers or even traditional rose: The ABV of the spritz is only 8 per cent, much lower compared to traditional rosé, which is usually between 12 to 13 per cent.
Aperol Spritz is owned by Campari Group, and after being in the doldrums for a long time, experienced a renaissance since the turn of the millennium and now leads the spritz market. Once something only found in cocktail bars or older London clubs, the Aperol Spritz has broken through into the mainstream in a spectacular way and in doing so become one of the standard drinks that every bar, pub or restaurant has to offer. As such, it is not hard to see why Fever-Tree has identified the spritz as a key market for expansion.
“Last summer we experimented with a rosé spritz on the menus of various pub groups and they proved a runaway success,” Warrillow said.
“I think it’s going to have great legs, not just here but internationally,” he added.