In Celebration of Pink Wine: an Exploration of Rosé Day and Going Overboard on Snacks
It was a warm June day, sunny with a clear blue sky. Whispers of white clouds appeared and then, just as quickly, disappeared. You might think this sounds like typical summer weather, but here in British Columbia’s Okanagan Valley, an area increasingly burdened by wildfires and smoke a clear day was becoming harder to come by. Clear skies were a cause for celebration, so we celebrated.
It was meant to be a casual affair, just some wine and a few snacks. The Internet called it “Rosé Day.”
What are Rosé Day’s origins? Unsurprisingly, as with most things, a marketing campaign. Of course, the industry would probably tell you it was to “raise awareness about rosé wine.” Which is another way of saying it was created to sell more wine. But this is beside the point. The fact is that Rosé Day is a day to celebrate a wine that is wholly its own. It’s neither this nor that. It’s light, yet complex. It’s sweet, but then again it’s not. It tastes like strawberries, almost always, but other times more like a dark-fruited jam. It is always chilled and always delicious, especially with the right snacks.
We did this occasionally, Nicole and I: we’d get together, drink local wine, and solve all the world’s problems (you know how that goes: over a glass of wine, suddenly we feel like CEOs, capable of righting the wrongs of this earth). She lives in a cozy, off-grid house at the top of a mountain overlooking the valley. On a clear day, the view from her place is the feeling you might experience while sitting on a cloud, overlooking the world.
Twenty years before, Nicole’s house burned to the ground, swept up in a monster wildfire. To Nicole, clear skies and fire-free days weren’t just a reason to drink wine as part of a corporate-made holiday, they were a reason to celebrate that she had lost it all and then got it all back.
Rosé Day. We knew that we were being taken for a ride with this one, a holiday made up by PR gurus. But no matter, we didn’t care. We didn’t need an excuse to enjoy very pink wine. Although the artificial holiday helped us justify day drinking on a Wednesday afternoon.
I was in charge of the snacks. Maybe it was the weather, or because I remembered all that Nicole had been through. Maybe because it was Wednesday. I don’t pretend to know how it happened. But suddenly I found myself making a feast fit for a football team, not two women sitting on a deck.
My first mistake was innocently Googling, “What foods pair well with rosé wine?” The Internet gently recommended asparagus, with no indication of what was to come.
In any region where snow reigns supreme for what seems like almost the whole year, there is nothing more life-affirming than seeing green things appear, fresh and springy. After a cold, dark winter with not a sprout in sight, the first of the season’s greens to appear at the market are a siren call. I naively started by lightly steaming some fresh, tender asparagus, and topping it with shaved parmesan, a splash of olive oil, and a scattering of salt. I didn’t realize what baby asparagus would usher in. I didn’t realize an avalanche was coming.
I’m not quite sure what happened next. Call it a rosé-day-induced fog. But suddenly I was soft-boiling eggs with brilliantly yellow yolks from my backyard chickens. And then: potatoes.
Beyond fresh greens, there still wasn’t much in season. But there were potatoes, there are always potatoes. Reliable best friends, a consistent carby delight. Mine were kicking around in the pantry, beginning to grow eyes but still edible. I sliced them into fat wedges, baked them, and coated them in ground sumac. Who knew this was a thing? I did not, but then again I wasn’t fully in charge. Something else was guiding me.
Typically, when I make DIY French fries, I keep the accessory dip simple: ketchup, the end.
But for Rosé Day (supposedly a simple PR stunt, and not some magical portal) it seemed obvious that the sumac-coated wedges coming hot out of the oven needed something more. A simple, tart yogurt dip, full of lemon and za’atar sounded nice. But wait, za’atar?! And sumac? What was happening here? Things were now officially out of hand.
And as if a plate of first-of-the-season asparagus, gooey, backyard-fresh soft-boiled eggs, and french fries dusted in sumac from scratch wasn’t enough, there was also the unarguable point that a meal, even one fully composed of snacks, is not complete without dessert. There must be dessert. It’s the law.
At this point, I had flown past the point of no return. What had started as a quick, shared appetizer, turned into an afternoon of dirtying multiple pans, my counters covered in za’atar and ground sumac. But there was no turning back. “Oh, Google? What desserts pair well with rosé?”
Strawberry slab cake. Medallions of crust topped a Pyrex baking dish bursting with the first of the season’s strawberries, another gift of spring in our Okanagan Valley. Tangy and sweet, sticky and simple. Perfect.
The skies remained clear. No fires that day. All that was left to do was feast and revel in the day. So, we ate and drank, took silly photos and posted them to Instagram, using the #RoseDay hashtag (to the delight of rosé wine PR firms worldwide). But, really, the day simply was about celebrating: the food, the season, and the winemakers themselves, who so expertly turned grapes into pink wine. My friend, who had risen from the ashes.
This was Spring.
Recipes for recreating your own Rosé Day, all courtesy of The Kitchn:
- Spring asparagus with eggs and parmesan
- Sumac-dusted oven fries (here paired with garlic spread, also delish, and plays double-duty keeping vampires away)
- Strawberry slab pie
