GAY WINES MAKE EUROPEAN DEBUT

French and Spanish vineyards have created wines specifically targeting and honouring the LGBT community.

France’s first ‘gay’ wine, a sparkling rosé by the name of TendreBulle Gay Vin by Domaine de Boyer, launched on July 1, reports Decanter Magazine. The bottle’s label featurs two stylized, almost kissing, heads with the words ‘Gay Vin’ inscribed underneath. The letters G and L, for gay and lesbian, also appear on the capsule.

‘I added the letters after some women at a wine fair told me the wine is only for boys,’ said the wine’s creator, Jacques-Edouard Pailles, a winemaker whose vineyard is in France’s Saint Martin de Villereglan.

Spain’s Ribera del Duero has also announced that they have created a wine with ‘charisma’ and ‘unique sensibility’ to honour the gay community.

Produced by Bodegas y Viñedos Robeal in Spain’s Roa de Duero, the wine, Mundo Gay, meaning Gay World, is the brainchild of a group of silent partner wineries from Ribera del Duero.

‘With gay marriage having been introduced in Spain and more liberty in the country, we wanted to take a step towards opening people’s minds in the small agricultural area of Ribera del Duero’, said Mundo Gay spokesman Fernando Martín.

These are not the first wines targeted at the gay community. In 2004 New Zealand winemakers Kim and Erica Crawford launched Pansy rosé in Sydney, just in time for the city’s annual gay Mardi Gras parade.