Just 11 days after her last As Ever product drop on June 20, Meghan Markle is releasing a Napa Valley Rosé “just in time for summer entertaining” on July 1.The date has double significance—first of all, it would have been the 64th birthday of Prince Harry’s mother, Princess Diana……and it also marks nine years since Harry and Meghan first connected over Instagram and had a marathon conversation that began their love story.
It could just be a coincidence, or it could be a sentimental decision—Meghan Markle’s lifestyle brand As Ever is releasing its first alcohol product, a rosé, on a significant date that has ties to both Princess Diana and Meghan’s love story with Prince Harry.
The Duchess of Sussex’s Napa Valley Rosé is available for purchase on July 1—just 11 days after her second product drop was released (and, within four hours, sold out) on June 20. Contextualize this with the fact that it was nearly three months between product drops last time—April 2 to June 20—and it leads one to think that the July 1 date was chosen for a reason.
Meghan Markle’s As Ever Napa Valley Rosé.
As Ever
And what a reason it is, if true: July 1 marks Diana’s birthday; had she lived to see it, she would have turned 64 years old this year. (Diana, tragically, died at just 36 years old on a Paris car crash on August 31, 1997, when her younger son, Harry, was just 12 years old.)
But that’s not where the July 1 significance ends. It turns out, according to Harry’s 2023 memoir Spare, that July 1 also has a special significance in Harry and Meghan’s relationship, which began in the summer of 2016. In Spare, Harry wrote that he and Meghan first connected on July 1 of that year—what would have been Diana’s 55th birthday. On that day nine years ago, Harry first reached out to Meghan after seeing a selfie of her on Instagram and, captivated, asked a mutual friend of theirs to connect them.
Princess Diana on June 17, 1997.
Getty
Prince Harry and Meghan Markle on August 17, 2024.
Getty
“Eventually, we exchanged phone numbers and mitigated the conversation over to text, going late into the night,” the Duke of Sussex wrote. “It occurred to me how uncanny, how surreal, how bizarre, that this marathon conversation should have begun on July 1, 2016. My mother’s fifty-fifth birthday.”
From there, the two went on back-to-back dates in London before having a third date trip to none other than Botswana, where their love was sealed; they were engaged in 2017 and married on May 19, 2018.
But back to the rosé for a moment: the “bespoke blend” is As Ever’s first foray into the alcohol space, after previously offering jams, teas, honey, and other food products. The rosé is described as having “soft notes of stone fruit, gentle minerality, and a lasting finish,” and a source close to the matter said the product’s release would be “just in time for summer entertaining.”
Meghan Markle.
Getty
“I hope that people see that reflected in whatever it is that I’m creating and putting out there,” Meghan told Inc. in April. “It’s just an extension of me.”
A spokesperson for As Ever exclusively told InStyle last week that the company was “thrilled” about its upcoming rosé, and said of the brand’s second product drop last Friday that “The response to this collection has been truly overwhelming and beyond what we anticipated, even with increased production capacity.”
“While we did significantly scale up quantities, the demand has consistently outpaced our projections,” the spokesperson said. “This is both exciting and challenging—we’re continuing to work with our partners to find the right balance between maintaining our quality standards and meeting the desire for As Ever product.”