If you have ever spent an evening wondering what on earth to drink, this is your answer. It was practically designed for the way we live in Arizona, where the pool is the living room and the good stuff comes out when people gather. For her it is never really about what is in the glass. It is about the people around the table, actually present with each other.
That “her” is Danica Patrick. You know her as the fearless driver who rewrote what was possible for women in racing, the one who led laps at the Indy 500, won the Indy Japan 300 in 2008. Ask her now which is the bigger rush, the checkered flag or a harvest morning, and the answer tells you everything. “Crossing the finish line first was over in a second,” she says. “Walking the vineyard on a harvest morning, that feeling stays with me all day.” When she is not on her 22-acre Napa estate, she is right here in the Valley, which makes her wine feel a little like our own.
Longtime readers may remember we first sat down with Danica a few years back, when the retired racing legend was pouring that same competitive heart into a second act as a Napa vintner. It all started with a single dinner. In 2006, a meal at The French Laundry sent her to a Napa tasting the next morning, and by the time the fog burned off the hillside, she was all in. Not just for the place. For wine itself. Three years later she bought a bare, undeveloped slope on Howell Mountain and built a vineyard out of nothing but dirt and a view. She called it Somnium. Dream, in Latin.
Those hillside Cabernets are what she pours when she wants people to linger. But her heart has a third home in Provence, that sun-drunk stretch of France that basically invented the rosé that tastes like a day off. And that is where Danica Rosé lives. It is pure Provence, grown, made, and bottled there start to finish with her business partner Julien Fayard, whose family has worked that soil for generations. He is also the winemaker behind her Somnium Cabernets, so the same careful hands touch both. “Julien and I work closely on the vision for it,” Danica says,.The wine is dry, with no added sugars. All the flavor comes from the fruit, nothing else, which is exactly how she and Julien like it. This is a bottle you open and then forget to fuss over, because it makes everything around it easier. Grilled shrimp on the patio. A cheese board nobody planned. That first pour when the sun finally drops below the fence line.
Not that any of it is effortless. Danica does not do anything halfway, and she is the first to admit the vineyard taught her a different kind of winning. "In racing, winning means being faster than everyone else that one day," she says. "Winemaking doesn't work that way. The vineyard humbles you like that." She points to the little red dot on every Somnium label, the one that means you are here. "It's a daily reminder for me as much as anyone," she says. "It's easy to say be present. It's another thing to catch yourself doing it." Ask her to picture the perfect evening and she does not hesitate. "The sun's going down on my Scottsdale patio, the sky is pink, my dogs are out in the grass, and I've got a glass of Danica Rosé over ice," she says. "I feel like all three places at once. The discipline of Napa, the ease of Provence, right here in the desert I call home."
Pull quote 1:
"Crossing the finish line first was over in a second. Walking the vineyard on a harvest morning, that feeling stays with me all day."
Pull quote 2:
"I feel like all three places at once. The discipline of Napa, the ease of Provence, right here in the desert I call home."
THE DANICA SPRITZ
Danica made a rosé built for gathering, so we built a little ritual around it. This is the pour for the evening the heat finally breaks and friends wander over.
The Spritz
This is the pour for the evening the heat finally breaks and friends wander over.
- Fill a large wine glass with ice.
- Pour in three ounces of chilled Danica Rosé
- Top with two ounces of sparkling water
- Add a splash of St-Germain (if feeling fancy)
- Drop in a few fresh strawberries and a sprig of mint
- Give it one gentle stir and let the color do the rest.
The Nibble
The wine’s bright cranberry and mandarin notes love a little salt, so lean into it.
- Set out a board while the ice melts a little.
- Marcona almonds
- A wedge of aged manchego
- A bowl of citrus-marinated olives
- A warm bread torn by hand
Prefer to keep it simple? Chill the bottle and pour. Danica made a wine that asks for nothing but good company and a moment to slow down. Danica Rosé and Somnium wines are available in Arizona. Learn more at SomniumWine.com or follow along at @SomniumWine and @DanicaRoseWine.