Turning Wine Into Water: Jesse & Jon Bon Jovi Partner with French Winemaker Gérard Bertrand

FEATURED PHOTO: Jon Bon Jovi and his son, Jesse Bongiovi, with their wine brand, Hampton Water. CREDIT: Doron Gild

It could be a reference to the beautiful beaches of Long Island, or maybe a new brand of fancy spring water, but instead it’s something entirely unique. Take one-part award-winning music icon, one part acclaimed French winemaker, and two parts ambitious college student and what you’ll have is the new premium rosé wine company that has been named among the five best rosé wines in the world. Conceived and run by Jesse Bongiovi, the second of Jon Bon Jovi’s four children with his wife Dorothea, Hampton Water was announced in January and launched by Jon Bon Jovi and Gérard Bertrand this past February.

Jesse, a recent Notre Dame football player and graduate, grew up in Monmouth County and spent his summers in the Hamptons with his family. Rosé was always the drink of choice for the Bongiovis, with Jon referring to the wine as ‘pink juice’.

“We’ve been going out to the Hamptons my whole life, and rosé is basically all anyone drinks out there,” said Jesse. “My parents are big rosé drinkers, it’s my dad’s drink of choice. So once I turned 21, my junior year of college, one night sitting on the porch with my dad he offered me a glass of pink juice. I looked at him and was like, listen Dad, you’re sitting in the Hamptons, you’re sitting on the beach, you’re not drinking pink juice anymore you’re drinking Hampton water. And the idea was born. The next day I was still bugging him about it, and he was like ‘go figure it out and if you have a serious idea, bring it back to me.’ Six months later I had met with everyone including distributors and had put together a concept and told my dad I wasn’t messing around and wanted to know what he thought. And he loved the idea.”

Jon and Jesse began exploring options to create a new wine as a real enterprise, designing bottles and building on concepts. They were introduced to Gérard Bertrand by a mutual friend and the three quickly developed a shared vision to create a unique rosé, uniting the essence of the relaxed lifestyles of the Hamptons and the South of France.

“We’d tried rosé from everywhere,” said Jesse. “But when we visited Gérard, we realized that there is an entire coastline in France that is producing some of the best-kept secrets on Earth.”

Coincidently, Jon Bon Jovi and Gérard Bertrand, both giants in their respective fields, had a lot in common.

“We just hit it off immediately,” Jon says of their first meeting. “We found that we shared a love of family, food, friends, and of course, great wine and great music.” Gérard Bertrand hosts a jazz festival at his main wine estate, Château l’Hospitalet, each year. “For me the connection between wine and music is organic,” says Gérard Bertrand. “I want to create a link between the emotions that spark off a great song and good wine. They elevate each other.”

Wanting to produce the best possible product, Jon and Jesse were very hands-on in the wine-making process. They took a number of visits to Gérard Bertrand’s wineries in the South of France, as well as numerous blending and tasting sessions, before they felt the wine was ready. The wine is described as a fresh and lively rosé, with distinctive minerality, featuring Grenache, Cinsault and Mourvèdre, grape varieties characteristic of the French Mediterranean region.

“Basically, ‘company’ is kind of a strong word that I laugh at,” said Jesse with a chuckle. “Right now, it’s me and my college roommate, Ali Thomas, who handle the day-to-day business. All of the sales, a lot of the logistics, some of the social media and marketing, getting things to places – which is unbelievably stressful. My dad is obviously there, and he helps us for what we call the ‘big boy’ meetings when me and my buddy can’t be the ones who walk in. Places like Fontainebleau down in Miami. It’s nice when two young guys walk in, and the wine is really good, and they like the story, but my dad is there to help with the wow factor. So at a place like Fontainebleau they’ll talk to us as opposed to telling us to wait in the lobby.”

Learning as they go, bottle design was an area where Jesse and his roommate, turned business partner, faced some challenges.

“We hadn’t had any formal marketing training, but we knew we wanted something timeless,” said Jesse. “Our original concept was to have the bottle shrink wrapped and we wanted the top half white and the bottom half to be clear shrink wrap so you would see the pink wine. It would create an illusion of the woman diver on the bottle diving into the rosé. She was turning water, the white top, into wine. So that was the original idea. And when we met with Gérard he looked at us as though we had ten heads. Then he explained all the reasons why that wouldn’t work and basically said, no shrink wrap, what else you got?”

Once things got rolling, both a public relations team and social media expert were hired to help. But learning the trade and building a brand has required long days and more work, travel, and learning than anticipated. He calls it a “sprinter’s education” and Jesse seems content to spend sixteen hours a day working whenever necessary, which is necessary seven days a week. He credits generations of Bongiovis with giving him the drive for success and enjoys that he is part of a legacy of business owners.

“Working with my dad is cool,” shared Jesse. “It’s great because it’s a new experience for both of us. It’s not like I’m trying to get into the music industry and he’s directing me what to do. This has been a good way we can both work and learn together, face different problems, and look at each other and kind of go – what do we do now? It’s awesome to look at my dad, who has been in many different businesses over 35 years, and to be able to say, what do we do now? It’s been super helpful having him around. And it’s been a lot of fun.”

Jon calls working with his son an “amazing experience”. And as Jesse exudes gratitude for the beliefs his father and mother raised him with, one can see the lack of pretension or entitlement in a young man who perhaps would be expected to have both.

“Growing up with my dad was just normal. As a little kid I remember not understanding why my friends’ dads didn’t go on tour,” laughed Jesse. “It just was normal to me. And as I got older I started to realize that someone who can have that big of a career is incredibly rare. All the lessons he’s taught me as a dad teaching his son, I realize it ended up being a master class in business. To be able to watch him, and the things that he does, and the lessons that he taught me throughout my life…those aren’t things that maybe every other person is hearing. And if you’re able to really implement what he’s shown me, you realize those are the traits that make a great business man and a truly successful individual. I got to do things growing up that most kids don’t get to do, and you don’t realize that until you’re a little older. There were parts that were really normal and now at 23 I realize I have a dad who is amazing. To make it to the hall of fame of anything is a serious lesson. And to be able to have my dad as a mentor has been unbelievable.”

It Takes Three

Jon Bon Jovi

Global rock icon Jon Bon Jovi has built a legacy leading one of the most successful rock bands in the world for over three decades. With over 130 million albums sold and more than 2,900 concerts performed in over 50 countries, Jon has earned a place in the Songwriters Hall of Fame (2009) while his Grammy winning band, Bon Jovi, was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in April 2018.

Gérard Bertrand

Gérard Bertrand began his life in the vineyard with his first harvest at the age of ten. As a winegrower and owner of flagship estates, he has since acquired a unique expertise of his native Languedoc wine region of southern France. Gérard Bertrand is committed to producing high quality wines and is a passionate advocate for environmental conservation. He is among the leaders in biodynamic wine production.

Jesse Bongiovi

Jesse Bongiovi is a recent graduate of the University of Notre Dame, where he received a degree in Political Science, as well as a minor in Business Economics. A Monmouth County native, Jesse has spent nearly every summer of his youth vacationing with his family in East Hampton, New York. This is where his love for the bon vivant lifestyle was born. His lifelong affection for the Hamptons is what motivated him to create Diving into Hampton Water.