Olympian Jessica Ennis-Hill taps into mid-strength wine boom with 7% rosé

Dame Jessica Ennis-Hill, one of the UK’s most celebrated Olympic champions, has launched a 7% premium rosé from Provence to tap into the market for mid-strength wines that people “would genuinely choose to drink”.

The former elite athlete has partnered with former Majestic MD Josh Lincoln and Master of Wine Ray O’Connor to launch ‘Seven Summers’, a premium dealcoholized rosé from Provence. The name reflects not only the wine’s 7% alcohol level – which clocks in at around half the normal strength of a Provence rosé – but also Ennis-Hill’s career as an Olympic heptathlete.

She said she wanted a rosé “I would genuinely choose to drink—not one I had to settle for”, adding that “this is about balance: something beautifully made, but lighter for modern life.”

Lincoln, who moved to media production after leaving Majestic, was working with Ennis-Hill on a podcast when the idea was born, he told db. He explained that as an athlete – before retiring, she won gold at the 2012 London Olympics and is a three-time World Champion – balance has been a very important part of Ennis-Hill’s life, from balancing elite training with socialising to staying fit as a mother of two children and entrepreneur.

“Seven Summers was born from the frustration she’s always had around having to compromise and sacrifice quality or quantity when she wanted to socialize,” he said. “We needed to make a rosé that had all the taste of Provence, but with lower alcohol to help find that balance.

“Like all good entrepreneurs do, she wanted to find a solution to that problem.”

Lincoln, who is the CEO & co-founder of Seven Summers, brought Ray O’Connor MW of Atelier Wines, an “ambassador of Provence” on board, who started to explore different levels of alcohol from zero upwards.

“We start with the best juice we can find in Provence, and then we carefully de-alcoholise it and play around with different levels,” he said. O’Connor uses a delicate and slower process to take the alcohol back to 6% – “some methods really strip the wine and actually hurts it a bit too much,” Lincoln explains, and then blends pure juice back into the product.

As O’Connor notes, “quality was the only brief. There wasn’t room for compromise. Lower alcohol can so easily mean lower quality, thinner texture, less depth. That was never going to be a trade-of we would make.”

The final product hits the “the sweet spot” of 7% – “the point where it keeps all that taste and all that quality of Provence” despite being half the alcohol than you would get from a normal Provence rosé.

Lincoln points out that “not a lot of mid-strength, and certainly [none of] the no and lows, have gone this way around, but we’ve created a premium product, a premium rosé at just 7% which I think is challenging the wine norms out there.”

He argues that the market is “absolutely moving in this direction”, with greater demand for mid-strength wines, pointing to Ocado reporting a 151% year-on-year increase in mid- strength wines, as reported by The Times which has resulted in them boosting their range.

“The next phase I see coming is about finding balance, it’s about what people want to drink, if they don’t want to necessarily drink excessively, but don’t want to give up on quality.”

Markets

Already available online, Seven Summers has been created for the retail market and priced at £12.50, which Lincoln admits it slightly higher than other mid-strength wines, but suitable for a product he says is innovative in terms of its quality.

“Obviously, there’s not many mid-strength wines above £10, and it is slightly above that, but we worked really hard to keep it at that price point, which wasn’t easy,” he said. “I’ve worked quite closely with some of the big supermarkets and have some [conversations] to make sure that the pricing is at a level that they’d feel comfortable with for their customers.”

There is potential to expand the brand into sparkling, or red or white wines “if the quality is there” however Lincoln says that once the brand is established, looking at alternative formats is likely to be the next move.

“Because rosé is a drink that people enjoy, at barbecues, garden parties and so on, it might be something that really leans into smaller formats, maybe cans,” he said.

Read more

Kylie’s Petit Rosé becomes UK’s number one ‘lighter alcohol’ wine

Related news

Celebrity winemaker creates exclusive range for luxury hotel chain

Celebrity wines take the lead on health labels as Irish law stalls

Celebrity wine boom in Provence leads to fears over future of family-owned vineyards