Rose Avengers & Producers (RAP) announced that its signature annual tasting event, PINK OUT! SF to be held on Tuesday, May 11th 2010, is adding a virtual experience with TasteLive–the worlds premiere online wine tasting community. RAP invites wine lovers around the world to join the celebration by opening and tasting their favorite rose wines, and then sharing their tweets and pictures. Revelers will need to pre-register at TasteLive.com to participate. Home base for the 6th annual rose celebration is Butterfly Restaurant in San Francisco.

RAP’s PINK OUT! success underscores the continued ascendancy of the $8.00 and above rose category. According to The Nielsen Company, premium rose table wines outpaced the market, growing at double-digit levels on both dollars and volume in 2009. Premium Rose wines grew by 13.5% on dollars, and 12.8% on volume, 5 times faster on dollars and 12 times faster on volume than the overall Table Wine category. The Table Wine category grew at 2.6% on dollars, and just 0.9% on volume. (Total U.S. Food, Drug, and Major Liquor Markets, 52 weeks ending 12/12/09).

“We are very excited to be working with the team at TasteLive to extend the excitement of PINK OUT! to an international audience,” said Joel Quigley, director of RAP. “And we’re making it easy–our TasteLive guests are encouraged to select their favorite fine roses to share with the world. In San Francisco, we’ll be tweeting about our featured wines and posting pics of winemakers and guests wearing their most fun and entertaining pink attire–a hallmark of the event.”

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