Jon Bon Jovi And Son Explain Their New Rosé

Andrew Toth/Getty Images

Jon Bon Jovi And Son Explain Their New Rosé

Andrew Toth/Getty Images

Bob Dylan has whiskey, and Jon Bon Jovi has wine. “I’m a wine guy,” Bon Jovi tells The New York Times in a new interview. “I got older. Tequila shots, I’ve been there done that.” And so the rocker and his 23-year-old son, Jesse Bongiovi, recently launched Hampton Water, a French rosé that retails for about $25.

“It started about two years ago,” Bongiovi tells The New York Times. “It was one of those late nights and the running joke out in the Hamptons is that rosé is the water of the Hamptons. Me and my buddies had been drinking rosé all summer and doing the Hamptons thing and living the life out there. One late night, I was sitting out on the porch and Dad here offered me a glass of ‘pink juice.’ I said, ‘Listen, you’re here out in the Hamptons. You’re not drinking ‘pink juice.’ You’re drinking Hamptons water.’ And the light bulb kind of went off.”

The wine is made with the help of winemaker Gérard Bertrand, and Bongiovi, a former cornerback for the University Of Notre Dame’s football team, is handling most of the marketing. That includes the wine’s mascot, a woman diving into pink water depicted on the bottle’s label. “Graceful, elegant, and always adventurous, her name is Pink, and our girl sure knows how to get the party started,” the website explains. “We recommend you follow her lead because when Pink’s around the fun is never far behind. But be warned when you’re with our girl you never know when day might turn to night … and night into day.”

The girl is meant to be more athletic than sexy — “more like an Olympic diver than a cute girl in a bikini,” as Bongiovi explains. “We really wanted a label that would jump off-the-shelf. You look at so many rosés, and also alcohol in general, so many look alike. We came up with the diver. Pink has really turned into our mascot. We’ve put her on T-shirts and hats and we’re trying to make her our Nike swoosh. We really thought it was something unique and no one else was going to have anything that looked even vaguely like it.”

It seems like Bongiovi is doing most of the legwork, while his dad mostly helped out with getting the idea off the ground. “All my kids get to be in charge of their own things. We never have stifled their creativity, nor did my own parents,” Bon Jovi says. “I still hear, from grown adults, ‘My kid wants to go into the music business, it’s the worst thing I’ve ever heard.’ And I think, ‘Really? Why would you stifle your kid’s creativity?’ And as a parent, how could you not be excited to work with your kids?”

Move over, Perry Farrell and Mick Jagger! There’s a new rock star dad in town!

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