(Eater) - In 2011, a homemade cocktail from Southern France took the rest of the country by storm. In this land of wine, it must have seemed a daring decision: just in time for summer, Maison Castel, a world-renowned Bordelaise wine producer, took a risk and released Very Pamp, a bottled cocktail of rosé wine mixed with grapefruit juice. And though they could never have known it at the time, this simple regional specialty would go on to become a national favorite.

Wine cocktails have long been mixed at home in the South of France, made-to-order at parties, cookouts, and other day-long summer extravaganzas. The tipples, lighter in alcohol than wine or a traditional mixed drink, could be enjoyed all day long in the sunshine. While the Basques preferredkalimotxo, a mix of red wine and Coca-Cola, and the Catalans were more adept at sangria, those on the French Côte d’Azur have opted for rosé pamplemousse (grapefruit in French), and it was this pink, slightly tart drink that took off through the rest of the hexagon, in bottled form.

Something about the combination struck a chord. The youthful pink hue? The lighter alcohol content? The refreshing flavor? Whatever it was, it had the French convinced: Sales of grapefruit rosé increased 125 percent from March 2012 to March 2013, and 22 million liters of flavored wine were sold in that year alone.

Didier Perruche, owner of La Chopine, a wine store in the Loire Valley, over 500 miles from Nice, scored his first shipment of grapefruit rosé in 2011. "They were like personalized kirs," Perruche describes, referencing the famous French aperitif combining white wine and blackcurrant liqueur. "I think that’s how it started. They would make themselves grapefruit rosé the same way that we would make a white wine-cassis, a kir, in the North."