Presenter Nicolette van Dam announced on Instagram that something big was about to happen. It turned out to be the launch of a new bottle of rosé, developed by her and her husband Bas Smit, with the name Bisous. “The playful sister of Chouchou,” their earlier rosé.
How special can a rosé be that there is still room for that on that overstrained market, I wondered. Like a friend of mine every time I give him a book as a gift, “I already have a book.”
The launch of the new rosé of Nicolette and Bas was finally there: the Gall & Gall in Amsterdam Oud-Zuid was completely furnished as a two-day pop-up store with 12,000 bottles of Bisous.
“This is not normal come along with fun,” said Bas Smit’s Instagramstory. Nicolette wore a pink sleeveless dress with open slippers and came dancing with her arms up the Gall & Gall, soul -happy, broad and winking to the camera, which went out for her. In her wake a pack of photographers, friends and family.
When I invited my friends for the book presentation of my debut two years ago, a girlfriend apped: “I can’t stay very long, I also have a course that evening.”
It doesn’t seem like they have that kind of friends at Van Dam. Or that their friends don’t know where to leave their arms when they are talking to someone.
From the bare head speeche Nicolette for customers and the press. This was a bottle that was light and accessible with ‘a soda’, one that you can easily take to the park. “You just imagine yourself in southern France.”
I watched the many videos of the launch party. A singer had been hired in a gymnast to let everyone dance in Brasserie van Dam. A quiz was stuck to it. People had to stand when they thought Nicolette was wearing the pants at home. Sit when they thought of Bas.
Everyone stood. Everyone was lagging out.
The next day we got a compilation of the party: women in a sailor suit, various folk singers, the parents and parents -in -law of Nicolette, snacks, drinks, and a lot of toasts with glass rosé.
I thought of what my father once said when I walked the market with him in my home town, where we saw about twenty women on a stage Zumba dancing: “When I see this I think I am completely outside society.”
For years I have been watching the Instagram account of Bas and Nicolette with wonder. How they say everything they ‘make a party’. How her mother even fooled her nicely on the beach in Marbella has her as if she just got out of the hairdressing chair. How Bas once about ‘Nics’ mother said you should look carefully at the cow to see how the calf gets, and that it is good with his loved one. How his beloved then agreed how abnormally beautiful her mother is. So positivity!
Sometimes I wonder if I could have become such a person if I was born in another family. Or that I could still become it if I master their terminology. Words like ‘enjoy enjoying’, ‘kanjers!’, ‘Insane’, and ‘not normal this!’.
Nicolettes father once fell victim to a brutal watch robbery and suffered physical injury. Nicolette said about it, “We remain positive.”
When I passed a 3 for my first linguistics exam at the University of Amsterdam about thirteen years ago, I called my father crying.
“Oh, how terrible,” he said. “What bad. Shall I come to you?”
We rarely focus on the positive.
When I look at those images from Nicolette and Bas then I think: for days of fun to a bottle of rosé. Something like that could have been there for me too.
Stéphanie Hoogenberk is a writer and podcast maker.