Mateus Rosé ready to rebound in Australia

When I first started drinking wine, Mateus Rosé was hugely fashionable among young drinkers.

It was a sweet but refreshing pink wine from Portugal, probably the first rosé most of us had tried, and the green bottle made a very trendy candle holder once you had consumed its contents.

Fashions changed, dry wines became all the range and Mateus changed its packaging more than once.

Still one of the world’s most famous wine brands and a global leader in the rosé category, Mateus (owned by Portuguese family-owned wine company Sogrape), may be set to make a comeback.

Mateus is joining the Oatley Fine Wine Merchants portfolio from March 1 and is set to benefit from a marketing push. 

Old School

“With Australia being such an important market for Mateus over the years, we are thrilled to now be joining the Oatley portfolio”, says João Gomes da Silva, chief marketing and sales officer for Sogrape.

“To nurture loyal clients and work with the Oatley team in building new customer relationships is a mission we face with great enthusiasm, especially considering that Australians are seeking rosé more and more as their wine of choice.”

Mateus was previously distributed by McWilliams, which is now in receivership.

"The rosé category is in strong growth and the Mateus wines will be pivotal in how we support our customers with their rosé offering,” said Oatley chairman Sandy Oatley.

Mateus was born in the 1940s and sold in a bottle inspired by the flasks used by soldiers in the First World War. The wine was styled to appeal to the rapidly developing North American and northern European markets.

Today, it is made less sweet and more sparkling to meet current trends.