I was in awe the moment I saw rosé.

It was simply beautiful.

The colors. Oh My God! I was not expecting such a wide spectrum of hues. There were shades of pinks ranging from pale rose gold to red plum skin, all so striking and alluring and diverse.

Then I was handed glass after glass. They smelled a-maz-ing.

There was a mysterious mélange of fruit, herbs and spice notes: Strawberry. Sea salt. Watermelon. Pink grapefruit. Dried lavender. Ginger. Rhubarb.

Raspberry. Peach.

Then I sipped on them – one by one. They were – wow – so tasty.

While some of the aromas previously listed blew off into the breeze, others were carried through onto the palate in the form of perplexing flavors that were combinations of juicy, tart, earthy and spicy.

It was all so unexpected: Jalapeno.Maraschino cherry.

It seems that nestled neatly right between the two larger wine categories, rosé exists. It is not quite a red wine and it most certainly is not a white wine.

It’s Rosé. It is a unique category of wines from around the world that are utterly fun and easy to drink.

I didn’t know how to articulate those characteristics when I was first introduced to rosé wine. All I knew back then was that I enjoyed everything about it.

That was long before I even knew it was considered wrong.

Yes, wrong to like rosé wines.

Hmm, what? And then why? And lastly, according to whom?

Apparently, that stance was according to a whole slew of wine- loving folks from wine-loving places from France to California.

And it was a belief that lasted multiple decades.

That was confusing to me. I always thought that wine, in the general sense, was one of the more sophisticated adult beverages you could consume.

Although in hindsight, I can remember noticing a fair share of side-eyes, scrunched up faces and clutched pearls over the years in reference to my fascination with rosé.

As it turns out, for most of the 20th century, the elite wine community deemed rosé wine as an unsophisticated, non-wine for wine novices or plebeians – aka – commoners.

Well, damn! Okay.

But what did I know about wine back then? I was just a college kid in the 1990s – who may or may not have been of legal drinking age – trying to explore the world and figure things out.

I’ve enjoyed wine, all my life, starting at a very young age. But my family and I weren’t cellaring and sipping on the 1973 Stag’s Leap

Wine Cellars Cabernet Sauvignon from the 1976 Judgement of Paris.

Not by any means. We were casually consuming Moscato d’Asti, Boones Farm and Riunite on ice and thought, at the time, that was rather nice.

When I really think about it now, I can remember a gradual personal wine divide with rosé that started to occur once I graduated college and moved into my professional work settings.

I started my career out as a daily newspaper reporter in New Orleans at the Times-Picayune a few weeks after graduation. When taking part in luncheons, attending company holiday parties and going to networking meetings, much of the focus on wine started to revolve around whether you wanted “the red or the white” option. That typically meant either a Cabernet Sauvignon or a Chardonnay.

While attending graduate school, I worked at the Clarion-Ledger newspaper in Jackson, Mississippi, as an assistant entertainment editor and feature writer. The same options – red or white wine – were mostly presented to me as I attended operas, gallery openings, photography exhibits and poetry showcases.

Then I moved over to the public relations profession after obtaining my master’s degree. Client entertaining was very much part of the job in the early 2000s, working for full-service advertising agencies with national and international accounts.

During those times, the wine selections coincided with copious amounts of surf and turf and multi-course dinners while “wining and dining” clients. While the red and white wine selections were a lot more varied during this time, they did not include rosé.

There seemed to be this continuous need for me to concede to the wine desires and tastes of higher ups in the company. They naturally had more elevated drinking experiences than I had at the time, so I chalked it up as part of the corporate grooming process.

I was still figuring out my palate. I was exploring new things to decide what was best suited for me and my personal tastes.

There was no question about what I liked. I knew that. However, there seemed to be a gap forming between what I liked to drink and what was deemed appropriate by others to drink.

In a way, I fell victim to the perfect pairing of propaganda and peer pressure: Judgement. Shame. Insecurity.

Rosé wine would continue to grace my palate from time-to-time over several years. Those times, unfortunately, became less and less frequent.

Then I moved to New York City. Then I started working in the wine business. Then I got reintroduced to rosé.

The popularity of rosé was palpable. It was being consumed everywhere that summer in 2010: the park, the beach, on cruises around Manhattan, on rooftop bars and in the Hamptons.

Rosé was on happy hour lists. Rosé bottles lined multiple store shelves. Rosé was making New York Times headlines.

Here we are now, 10 years later, in 2020. Nowadays, everything is coming up rosé.

It’s a global movement. It’s a vibe. It’s a viral hashtag – or several. 

From the early spring to the late summer months, one can barely get through the week without someone enthusiastically utilizing the popular hashtags #roséallday, #yesswayrosé and #drinkpink. Then there is even #brosé (bros who drink rosé). Hey, I make it up or co-sign that one.

Rosé has become a regular part of daily life during the summer months across the country, from picnics to pool parties and house parties to pop-up shops.

But even more than that, it has developed into a concrete culture. It has taken root!

Today, rosé is the fastest growing of all the wine categories and I’m tickled pink.

Regarding my relationship with pink wine, I let go of the judgements and shame and insecurity a long time ago – along with most of the wine-loving society. I can proudly say that I love to drink rosé wines and I don’t care who knows.

Well, that’s not exactly true. I very much care who knows.
That is why I wrote this book. I want the world to know – for the record – that I adore rosé wine.

And I’m going to drink it and enjoy it, hashtag, my way – #rosémyway