40-ounces Of Rosé Have Non-Wine Snobs Very Excited


The 1992 Sublime song “40oz. to Freedom” has taken on new meaning this spring. Historically, a “forty” has been the beloved drink of college kids and budget drinkers. It’s usually filled with malt liquor and is adorned with names like Olde English, St. Ides, Mickey’s, Hurricane, and Colt 45. The main carrying device for the forty is a brown paper bag. This functional packaging not only keeps your hand from getting too cold in between sips, but also camouflages the drink.

All that changes today. That is because rosé is now available in forty ounce bottles. It should be no surprise based on its name, but a company called Forty Ounce Wines just released a forty ounce bottle of rosé. The aptly named company — which already released a forty ounce bottle of Muscadet last year to very little fanfare — has just bestowed upon the world the fanciest forty in the history of alcohol.

It was inevitable that a company would produce a rosé in a forty ounce bottle, and this isn’t some cheap swill either, the wine was made by Julien Braud, a highly-regard organic winemaker in the Loire Valley in France. You don’t get much classier than French wine. This is definitely not the forty you and your pals duct taped to your hands while playing “Edward Forty-Hands” in college. This is the wine that you sip slowly (still out of the bottle and in a brown paper bag) while you discus foreign films and the books of David Foster Wallace. Or, you could just forego all fanfare and treat it like a wine that just happens to come in a forty. Whatever works for you.

Obviously, Twitter users have already weighed in on the forty of rosé:

https://twitter.com/thatspoppaslim/status/850516429174697985

https://twitter.com/alohafromsac/status/850590325378736128

https://twitter.com/tenzingws/status/831552055189839873

According to Food and Wine, Forty Ounce Wines only produced 1,200 cases of the 2016 vintage that you can currently find on store shelves in Pennsylvania, New York, New Jersey, California and Colorado. Unlike that bottle of OE you’re used to spotting at your local 7-Eleven, you might have to be on the look out for this wine.

At 40 ounces, the rosé is larger than a regular bottle of wine and retails for only $16 dollars (that’s only a dollar less than a regular forty sold by hipsters earlier this year). That’s a bargain any way you look at it. Plus, if you show up to a party with a forty of rosé you’re guaranteed to start a conversation. Wouldn’t you rather talk to the guy with a forty of rosé instead of the one with a boring, old bottle of Pinot Grigio?