Montauk Hosts Twitter and Instagram Superstar The Fat Jew

Where were you during the Great Rosé Shortage of Summer 2014? I think it’s one of those historic instances where we can all definitively remember the precise moment we were forced to reckon with the harsh reality at hand.

For Josh Ostrovsky, Instagram celebrity and modern entrepreneur, it was a moment of humanitarian inspiration. Never again would Hamptonites run dry of their favorite summer sip. Ostrovsky, most popularly known online as “The Fat Jew” or @thefatjewish, would create his own rosé and save the summer.

Ostrovsky is made for 2015. It’s a time when teenage YouTube celebrities become the faces of major cosmetics companies and a lovable, portly New Yorker can create and share viral memes amassing more than 5 million Instagram followers (Hamptons fan Hillary Clinton has 188,000 followers) and go on to launch a brand of rosé.

This Friday, July 24, Harbor restaurant is hosting Ostrovsky and Babe Walker a.k.a @whitegrlproblem, the fictional character created by Ostrovsky’s business partner David Oliver Cohen, his brother Tanner Cohen and Lara Schoenhals, for an intimate dinner party to celebrate White Girl Rosé, which will now be served at the Montauk hotspot.

The evening includes a three-course prix fixe menu designed by Executive Chef Roy Whalers and, of course, White Girl Rosé will be flowing all evening. There’s even an afterparty with music by Maraja.

Fans of Ostrovsky include (not surprisingly) Miley Cyrus, Katy Perry and Kanye West and (more surprisingly) East Hampton’s Katie Couric, and he continues to turn his subversive internet comedy into mainstream stardom. But it’s not all chili baths (which Ostrovsky took for a sponsor) and beef jerky vests (which Ostrovsky has worn for another sponsor). He’s trying to tap into a legitimate and growing market with White Girl Rosé.

According to Bloomberg Business, sales of expensive rosés (ones more than $20) grew 41 percent in the U.S. compared with a measly 1 percent growth for all other wine categories. White Girl Rosé sells for $14.99 a bottle.

There’s also another growing movement of men drinking the pink wine. “And we embrace the ‘bro-sé’ movement,” said Ostrovsky in an interview with Bloomberg. Cohen added that the brand was “pansexual.”

White Girl Rosé boats a “rich nose of watermelon, strawberry, and floral notes,” according to the description on Fresh Direct. “Crisp and clean, this wine makes an excellent aperitif and is perfect with BBQ chicken, burgers, grilled shrimp, Asian food, and almost any cheese that has ever been mongered.”

Whether you’re a fan of Ostrovsky or Cohen, of internet celebrity or meme culture, I think most of us can get behind more rosé for everyone on the East End.