Why a new, playful style of wine is delighting drinkers

Is it a red wine, or a white? It is both. As its name suggests, Côtes d’Amourschwihr Pinots, from Christian Binner, a winemaker in the Alsace region of France, is a blend of two grapes: pinot gris, a white grape, and pinot noir, a red grape. Served slightly chilled, the resulting wine is light and refreshing, like a white, but with the structure and depth of a red.

Mr Binner calls it “blouge” wine—a portmanteau of blanc and rouge. He is one of many winemakers around the world championing this emerging style, which handily helps them respond both to shifting consumer tastes and to the challenge posed by climate change.

The centre of blouge is France, but winemakers are trying it almost everywhere wine is made. Boogie Woogie, a blouge from Aubert & Mathieu, a winery in the Languedoc region, combines grenache noir with grenache gris. Superbloom, made by Las Jaras Wines in Sonoma, California, blends white chenin blanc and viognier with red carignan and grenache noir. Rainbow Juice, from Gentle Folk, a winery in Adelaide Hills, Australia, brings together red sangiovese with white pinot gris, gewürztraminer and sauvignon blanc. The latest example comes from the venerated wine region of Bordeaux. Jacques Lurton’s “J” cuvée, announced in November, combines cabernet franc and sauvignon blanc, and claims to “embody the spirit of blouge: a new, modern and surprising path”.

This blending makes blouge different from rosé, which (despite its pink colour) is almost always made using only red grapes. Co-fermentation of red and white grapes is not a new idea. Many champagnes combine white and red grapes (but with minimal skin contact for a golden colour); the great syrahs of the Northern Rhone include some viognier; and the traditional blend for chianti, an Italian red, includes malvasia bianca. But blouge is breaking new ground with its style of lighter, fresher wines, often with playful names to emphasise their novelty and expand their appeal.

This aligns well with changing consumer tastes. Lighter reds and rosés have been gaining popularity in recent years. But the use of both red and white grapes gives blouge “a more racy and approachable profile”, says Sarah Campbell of IWSR, a market-research firm. It is generally lower in alcohol than red wine and more versatile than rosé when it comes to food pairing.

Because they often break the strict rules about the grapes that can be combined in specific regions, blouge wines must use less prestigious, more generic classifications (such as “Vin de France”). Aficionados may sneer, but blouge is aimed at younger, more adventurous consumers. “They want to drink something new, fun and easy-going,” says Ms Campbell. Anthony Aubert, of Aubert & Mathieu, says the industry needs to innovate to attract younger customers, and “This new category is the perfect answer.” His firm sold 20,000 bottles of Boogie Woogie in 2025, 40% more than in 2024. It is, he says, “an interesting start for a new segment”.

The blouge approach also provides resilience to climate change. Higher temperatures and heatwaves cause grapes to accumulate sugar more quickly, while the ripening of skins and seeds can lag behind, causing a mismatch. Harvest red grapes early to minimise sugar and keep alcohol levels down, and you may get bitter, green tannins. Harvest later, and the tannins will be ripe, but the resulting wine will have high levels of alcohol (15-16%) and a flabby lack of acidity. When white and red grapes are combined, however, the white grapes boost acidity and reduce alcohol levels. Winemakers can also harvest white and red grapes at different times before combining them for fermentation, providing added flexibility as the climate shifts.

Blouge is gaining attention in the wine world, but it is hard to say how much. Data firms consider it still too niche to track. Moreover, there is no accepted definition or name for such wines; many blouge-makers do not use the term, or use it only informally. But some wine shops and restaurants are starting to recognise “light red” as a distinct category, says Mr Aubert. That may encourage more consumers to give blouge a try. ■