Walk the give-back aisle and you will read the same phrase on a dozen labels: a portion of proceeds supports animals in need. A portion. It could be twenty percent. It could be a nickel. The word is doing a lot of work precisely because it commits to nothing, and shoppers who genuinely want their money to land somewhere useful have almost no way to check.
Which is why Rescue Rosé is worth a closer look, and not mainly because it is a nice pink wine. Its number is on the record: 20 percent of proceeds from every bottle goes to animal rescue, with the beneficiary organizations named. That is a rarity, and it makes the bottle a useful case study in what a cause product looks like when somebody is willing to show the math.
The wine comes from Nola Singer, a Los Angeles fashion stylist behind some seriously chic red-carpet looks, who did not pivot into wine so much as build a fundraising vehicle that happens to taste good.
She wasn’t trying to get into wine. She was trying to help dogs.
Singer grew up in Los Angeles, and says both obsessions, clothes and animals, date back as far as she can remember. Her parents took her to a shelter when she was eight, and the family came home with a Lab mix named Toby, who ended up sleeping in her room even when she was at school. She describes herself as an Aquarius, all heart and humanitarianism, and if you find that unscientific, take it up with the wine, which is delicious.
The route to a bottle was the long way around. She wanted a way to fund rescue, she loved wine, and she decided the two could be the same object. Finding a vineyard willing to make a genuinely clean wine took time. She launched in 2020, which was, as business timing goes, a catastrophe: restaurants were placing their first orders roughly when they were forced to close.
She kept it small on purpose. Production still runs about 100 cases a year.
The dog on the label
The Pug on the bottle is Blanche, named for the Golden Girls character, and she is the reason any of this exists.
Singer adopted her from the Downey Animal Care Center at nine months old, where she was being held as part of an abuse case. Blanche was too frightened to be picked up. Singer took her home and spent three hours feeding her, one piece at a time, until the dog decided the human was worth trusting. As Singer puts it, Blanche is a Pug, which is to say a pig, and food did the work that words couldn’t. Hours later she was asleep in the bed and following Singer around the house.
The rest of the rehab was social. Singer took Blanche out constantly and let her borrow confidence from the calm older dog already in the home, a technique that works better than most people expect. Blanche was terrified of everyone, and of men in particular. Today she greets strangers, wags, and plays like a dog who was never anything else.
“Food isn’t a bribe when you’re working with a shut-down dog, it’s a conversation,” says Dr. Lena Park. “You are letting her choose to come closer on her own schedule, and a confident resident dog does half the teaching for you. The mistake people make is reaching for her. Sit down, look away, and wait to be approached.”
That story is the honest reason to care about the bottle, and it is also, conveniently, the label art.
What is actually in it
The spec is more serious than novelty cause-wine usually is. Rescue Rosé is a Provence-style rosé made from Pinot Noir grapes now harvested in Monterey County and produced using the saignée method, with the wine crafted in Santa Rosa, California. It is aged in a combination of stainless steel and oak, and it runs 13.9% ABV.
The vineyard is certified sustainable, with organic practices and solar power. The wine itself is vegan and gluten-free. Tasting notes: light pink, floral, light-bodied, strawberry, and a bright minerality holding up the acidity.
Singer says she went with rosé simply because it is her favorite, and that other varieties are the eventual goal.
Do the math before you feel good
Here is the part the give-back aisle does not want you to do.
At about 100 cases a year, Rescue Rosé produces roughly 1,200 bottles annually. At $25 a bottle, that is a small, tightly held operation, not a machine. The 20 percent pledge is meaningful and specific, but “proceeds” is still a term of art, and it is fair, with any cause brand, to ask what base the percentage is calculated on. Twenty percent of net profit and twenty percent of gross revenue are wildly different donations wearing the same sentence.
That is not a knock on this bottle. It is the reason this bottle is a good teacher. Use it as a template, and put three questions to any product that claims to give back:
- Is there a number? “A portion” is not a number. “20 percent” is. If the brand will not print a figure, assume the figure is embarrassing.
- Is the recipient named? A specific nonprofit you can look up beats “animal charities” every time. Rescue Rosé names A Purposeful Rescue and I Stand With My Pack; Love Leo Rescue has also been among its beneficiaries.
- Is the base defined? Percent of what — revenue, profit, or the wholesale price? Brands that are proud of the answer tend to publish it.
A bottle that clears all three is doing more good than a bottle with a paw print and a vibe.
Why she is angry, and why it shows up in a wine
Singer does not soften her read on the shelter system: she thinks it is broken. Spay-and-neuter laws go unenforced, breeder conditions go unchecked, and shelters get so full that dogs end up crated in hallways, sometimes doubled up, which is how fights start. And people keep buying dogs while shelters are drowning.
Her counter-argument is the one worth repeating, because it dismantles the most common excuse: every breed is available in rescue. Breed-specific rescues exist in nearly every state, and shelters hold purebreds, mixes, puppies, and seniors alike. The idea that you must go to a breeder to get the dog you have in mind is, for the vast majority of people, simply false.
What she wants to build next is a vineyard that doubles as a sanctuary, where visitors drink wine surrounded by senior animals who are up for adoption. In the meantime she donates bottles to rescue fundraisers, has helped clients adopt and foster, and would like to run happy hours that put adoptable dogs in front of wine drinkers.
Where to buy it
Rescue Rosé is sold direct at rescuerose.com for $25 a bottle, with a 12-bottle case at $300.
It is also stocked around Los Angeles, including at AOC, Pace, Farmshop, Little Pine, Nic’s on Beverly, Conservatory, the Cheese Store of Beverly Hills, Larchmont Village Wine, Spirits & Cheese, Bottled Poetry in Santa Monica, John and Pete’s in West Hollywood, Booze & Brews in Valley Village, Mission Wines in South Pasadena, Ladyhawk and the bar at the La Peer Hotel, and Hillcrest Country Club.
Wine cannot be shipped through the usual pet-retail channels, so there is no Amazon equivalent to send you to here. Buying direct is also the version where the 20 percent is largest, which is a rare case of the convenient option and the useful option being the same one.
What’s new since this was written
The production story has shifted slightly. The brand now sources its Pinot Noir grapes in Monterey County and finishes the wine in Santa Rosa, rather than growing and making it in one place, and it publishes the full spec: saignée method, stainless and oak aging, 13.9% ABV, certified-sustainable vineyard.
The donation language has also gotten sharper. Rescue Rosé’s site now states plainly that 20 percent of proceeds from each bottle goes to A Purposeful Rescue and I Stand With My Pack, both Los Angeles organizations. That is a more specific promise than it was making a couple of years ago, and moving in the direction of more disclosure rather than less is exactly what you want to see from a brand asking you to buy on principle.
Pricing has held: still $25 a bottle, still $300 for a case of twelve, still direct from the maker.
References
- Rescue Rosé. Official site: winemaking, tasting notes, and donation commitment. rescuerose.com
- Rescue Rosé. Stockists. rescuerose.com/pages/stockists
- A Purposeful Rescue. apurposefulrescue.org
- I Stand With My Pack. istandwithmypack.org
- Love Leo Rescue. loveleorescue.org
- Los Angeles County Downey Animal Care Center. animalcare.lacounty.gov
