My compact terrace is overgrown with roses, not the garden variety seen at the local nursery, but oxygen depriving English David Austin roses – Jude the Obscure, Gentle Hermione, Constance Spry and Molineux.

My mother’s rose garden dwarfs my terrace in both acreage and stunning variety, some beautifully cultivated and others running wild. For this reason, everyone (I mean everyone) who visits either garden naturally assumes that I am a namesake for this floricultural madness.

In fact, my name has nothing to do with English roses. You see, my father unabashedly shouted to the delivery team at my birth that I had the perfect pinkness and bubbliness of a world class rosé wine. Hence, forevermore Rose. It could have been much worse, how would I survive being named after English roses like Wollerton Old Hall or Munstead Wood?  

But, I was lucky as tucked away in the furthermost garden corner, bathed by sun and shielded from wind, my father would steal away with rosé in hand and plop down on a self-worn perfectly contoured antique bench and wait for someone or something to pique his interest or, if not, to take a mid-day nap. The bench had random planetary and mystical carvings never explained and a tended grape arbor, my father’s sole gardening contribution. 

 The arbor shielded my father from the afternoon sun and provided wicker baskets and later plastic buckets brimming with Sangiovese grapes for his extremely modest rosé winemaking hobby. The wine barrels and presses were located in the cellar far from the furnace but near his celeste vintage Bianchi 10-speed. There is so much more, and I promise in the future to describe this small but mighty paternal adventure as it is worth unique attention.

As this is my first LeMixedBag.com contribution, I thought it important to begin to introduce myself starting with my name. Later, we will continue the journey and discuss the complexities, approaches and controversies stemming from creating something named rosé.