Prowein: Yellow Tail turns focus on rosé as red and white boom

By Lisa Riley

Published: 21 March, 2019

Casella Family Brands (CFB) Europe is turning its focus on growing its rosé wine in the UK market as it records burgeoning sales across its red and white ranges.

The focus has in the past 18 months been on “supercharging” its white wines and it was now “time to do the same with rosé”, European general manager Simon Lawson told Harpers.

“Coming up to its third year, Castella Europe’s initial focus was on getting the reds right, which we have achieved. We then turned our minds to doing the same with the white part of Yellow Tail and, as a result, we are seeing strong growth,” he said.

Launched in September last year, Yellow Tail Rosé had been received “really well” in the UK, he added, saying it was bringing value as well as new consumers to the category.

“We want to build on the initial launch and extend distribution in the UK."

In the UK, the total Yellow Tail brand recorded 31% value growth on volumes up 29% in the 52 w/e to 31 December 2018 (IRI), with whites growing ahead in volume terms - up 35% to 40%, according to Lawson.

Since 2015, the brand has doubled to 2 million case sales in the UK, with 2.6 million cases now sold across Europe.

To further boost growth, Casella has earmarked a £2 million marketing spend for Yellow Tail this year, up from £1.8 million in 2018, with activity including TV, social media and experiential.

Pinpointing the UK market as one with “a lot of opportunity, despite other companies perhaps not looking at it as the most exciting”, Casella’s overall aim was to “grow sustainably and profitably which we are in a good shape for”, said Lawson, adding all focus would be on premium tiers in a bid to continue to grow value.

Casella also used Prowein to showcase a new Millennial targeted wine brand - Magic Box, which is poised to hit the UK later this month, and which it said was “positioned differently to Yellow Tail but shares a lot of its flavour and taste profile”.

Pitched as a non-geographical range developed to broaden the middle of Casella's portfolio, the four-strong brand (two reds, a Chardonnay and a rosé, comes with an RRP of £10. It went on sale in Australia last month.

Printer friendly version