Bon Jovi dives into wine business with ‘lively’ rosé
Would you like some wine with that sauce?
For Bon Jovi fans, the answer now is yes. Diving into Hampton Water, a collaboration between Jon Bon Jovi and French winemaker Gérard Bertrand, will soon be available in the United States.
“Creating this wine with Gérard was just as creative as collaborating with another songwriter, Gérard uses his talents and wine knowledge just like a gifted musician,” Bon Jovi said in a statement. “And working with my son on this has been an amazing experience.”
The premium rosé was inspired by Bon Jovi’s son, former Notre Dame football player Jesse Bongiovi. The idea was to create a wine emblematic of a bon vivant lifestyle as experience in the Hamptons, where the Bon Jovis summer. Bongiovi and a friend came up with the name “Hampton Water,” and he started collaborating with his dad on the concept.
They eventually had a meeting with Bertrand.
“We’d tried rosé from everywhere,” Jesse Bongiovi said in a statement. “But when we visited Gérard, we realized that there is an entire coastline in France that is producing some of the best-kept secrets on Earth.”
The wine is described as a fresh and lively rosé, with distinctive minerality, according to a press release, and it features Grenache, Cinsaut and Mourvèdre grape varieties, characteristic of the French Mediterranean region.
“We just hit it off immediately,” Bon Jovi said of his relationship with Bertrand. “We found that we shared a love of family, food, friends, and of course, great wine and great music.”
“For me the connection between wine and music is organic,” said Bertrand, who hosts a jazz festival each year in France. “I want to create a link between the emotions that spark off a great song and good wine. They elevate each other.”
Diving into Hampton Water will hit shelves before spring and will cost $25.
The Bongiovi family previously launched the Bongiovi Brand pasta sauce in 2012. Bon Jovi’s Soul Foundation operates two pay-what-you-can Soul Kitchen restaurants, in Red Bank and Toms River, N.J.