Fame and fermentation. What is it with celebs and the crushed grape?
Wine is having a bit of a sales slump at the moment and it’s a bit of bloody shame. It’s fair to say that every time I catch up with someone in winemaking or wine industry adjacent at the moment, the chat soon goes to how hard it is to sell a bottle right now.
Around the world, people are drinking less of it. Some have long-standing wine cellars they’re now working their way through. Some are drinking less alcohol full stop and some are finding fascination in other elixirs like mezcal or gin. I get it — a classic, salt-rimmed marg is my Go To but it doth butter no parsnips when it comes to pairing well with my mushroom risotto.
No indeed. I’ll be leaning hard into a deftly structured, supple glass of a marsanne rousanne blend or a waxy, unctuous Chardonnay to beckon the best umami from my bowl. The marg might cleanse the palate but it’s the wine that wins me over in the end.
Wine is like no other beverage really. It’s founded in ridiculously rich tradition that dates back 8000 years. But does that incredible history dictate how we curate our wine stories? Does that mean we still have to talk about, market it and sell it in the same old traditional ways? It seems to me that the old tricks like moody drone flyovers of a vineyard or unusually good-looking couples laughing manically amongst the vines — just aren’t cutting through any more. When something doesn’t land with your customer, it doesn’t translate into sales conversions.
How can the industry shift to speak in a more inviting language to break through to the apparent deaf ears out there right now? What are the cues we can follow that seem to be working?
Of late I’ve been admiring the marketing efforts of Dom Pérignon. For so long the Champagne category did little to woo me. Constantly underwhelmed by predictable posts on the socials of an unopened bottle and two, half-filled flutes, I’ve been left wondering — if that bottle isn’t even open, what the hell is actually in those glasses?
I have felt disappointed at the effort made to invite me in. It gave me chance to pause and wonder, do I even want in? That’s a precarious place to put a potential customer. Indifference is another way of saying ‘whatever’.
Then Dom Pérignon got a bit gangster and called on some serious celebrity force to promote their fizz in the form of Lady Gaga. I spent a disproportionate amount of time on the Dom Pérignon channels being utterly moved, emotionally intrigued and sensorily challenged by what was, after all, just a bloody wine ad.
Hats off, DP. When I win Lotto, it will, one hundred percent, absolutely, emphatically, most definitely, just try and stop me, be your bubbly that I buy. I’m not ashamed to say I was so moved by this creative collaboration that I cried a little. Fuck - now that’s how you sell fizz.
I might not be a paying DP customer right now but isn’t this what we expect from our wine? That it should move us? That it inspires us? That might be a lot to lay at the feet of small vignerons around the world but I believe, importantly, this collab of musicians, choreographers and dancers stands to viscerally remind us that wine is art and is something seriously special. Wine exists in a world of creativity and wonder, of collaboration and community.
Look, Dom is bloody expensive and the company doesn’t need me to promote their gear. But here’s the thing — I WANT to share this content.
Dom followed up with beautiful images across it’s instagram grid that set a tone of experience that felt kinda invitational — perhaps not beyond my reach (I mean, it is BTW) but I felt that maybe I too could scoff a bott on the beach in my favourite gold dress and be all stylie and stuff. It feels like even if I can’t afford an actual bottle of Dom, I can maybe emulate a little and live the #DomLife even if the bubbles I buy are something different.
Let’s be frank, there’s a still a high proportion of wank here and what I wouldn’t give for the marketing budget of a brand like DP (every winery owner/marketing manager reading this will likely be muttering the words, ‘Same here, Morv. Same here!’) So, while very few of us have the luxury of this sort of financial fun-times, it goes a long way to showing us how a fizz can put the rizz in our lives and I think that’s very interesting.
There is some serious elitism going on here — an element I’m generally quite allergic to in the wine world — any world actually. However, this content is aspirational and should set a target for the rest of us when it comes to engaging our drink-curious cronies.
The current Dom Pérignon campaign employs the star power of Tilda Swinton, Zoë Kravitz, Takashi Murakami, Anderson .Paak and that raving old nude romper and musical rocker, Iggy Pop (whom I adore). It’s a different vibe completely from Lady Gaga but all still famous people so I find myself asking, does it take celebrity to sell wine these days?
Yep. (end of article)
Seriously though, is it going to be The Untouchables that make wine cool? Is it these A and oft B-Listers (the “sublebrities” ) who will keep wine front and centre for the laymen types, the ordinaries, the everydayers, the never-gonna-be-famous folk like me?
Yep. (end of article)
Star-fucking isn’t everyone’s cup of char and not all celebs are created equal. A Kardashian kicking back with a glass of Cabernet could do as much towards putting me right off but it’s hard to argue that when famous folk put their heavyweight hands on a wine, many people pay attention. I mean, I’d never heard of Miraval Rosé until I realised it was part of the fiercely fought and very public custody battle of Brad and Ange.
But there are better, more worthy examples to celebrate…and famous folk plugging booze ain’t new. Here’s a bit of reflection on how wine benefits from a little star-dust…
The Coppolas
Francis Ford Coppola didn’t just direct iconic movies — he literally built wine into the DNA of his most famous one. In The Godfather, wine isn’t background noise; it’s a cultural anchor.
In the 1970s, Francis bought part of the old Inglenook estate in Napa and started making wine with his family — not as some lofty château dream, but in the basement with kids and adults alike stomping grapes and having a giggle. It truly looked like a bloke who had a genuine love of wine and winemaking but it wasn’t long before the fame factor took his wine from a dabble to something quite different. Fast forward a few decades and that family-fun-time hobby of his had turned into a full-blown wine empire.
By the 1990s, Coppola had gone big in Sonoma, CA with a winery that looked more like a movie set than a tasting room: swimming pools, movie memorabilia, bocce courts, restaurants, and oh yeah — wine. Not content just to pour Cabernet, Coppola was set to sell the Hollywood fantasy alongside it. Weirdly, the consumers loved it. Wine went from intimidating to entertainment. It feels a bit cringe and everything but maybe that’s just the wine snob in me talking and here’s the thing — that wine snob attitude is part of the overall wine problem because I think it prevents us from seeing wine in its broader sense — simply a social lubricant for all to enjoy.
Sofia Coppola, Francis’s daughter and an acclaimed director in her own right (Lost in Translation, The Virgin Suicides, Marie Antoinette), added a generational twist with Sofia Wines. Originally created by Francis as a gift for Sofia, the wine brand took off with its playful packaging — particularly the Sofia Blanc de Blancs mini sparkling cans with pink straws. This was groundbreaking in the early 2000s: it targeted young, fashion-conscious women, making sparkling wine portable, fun and Instagram-ready long before anyone knew what the fuck Instagram was.
And, when social media did finally come along, the same beautiful aesthetics that Sofia creates in her films was used to take wine stories to another level. Each post promised ethereal and exceptionally feminine, fun but powerful mini movies that made the wine a conduit that took you from your daily life to a dreamy other world — on your terms. Again, isn’t that what wine is all about? To transport us somewhere just slightly removed from our daily comings and goings? To change our mood and make us feel something? To remind us that it’s just the refreshment that we take along for the ride?
Although the Coppola Winery was sold in 2021 to one of the largest wine companies in the US, signalling how valuable the brand had become in mainstream wine sales, it was arguably how both Francis and Sofia used wine as sincerely important props in their story telling that helped share the vinous value and made us all want to crush that cup hard.
Pink
Returning to inspiring, bold and brilliant musicians for a moment, let’s introduce Pink to this party.
Born Alecia Moore, Pink burst onto the music scene in the early 2000s with a string of no-nonsense pop anthems like Get the Party Started, Just Like a Pill and So What. While many of her contemporaries leaned into polished pop princess aesthetics, Pink carved out a persona that was raw, defiant and deeply authentic. She wrote songs about resilience and has become one of the world’s most enduring live performers.
Across her two-decade career Pink earned a reputation as one of the hardest-working performers in pop. But off stage, she was quietly cultivating another passion: wine. When you acknowledge what kind of artist she is, it’s no wonder her approach to wine is very hands-on and gritty.
In 2013 she purchased a vineyard in Santa Barbara County, USA and launched Two Wolves Wine, a label she co-owns with her husband, Carey Hart. Unlike some celebrities who simply license their name and give a bit of lip service to their wine supply, Pink committed to the craft and studied viticulture, gained work experience with organic farming practices and spent time doing the menial but necessary tasks in the cellar. Her wines are serious, small-production expressions of terroir showing that the same graft that fuelled her music career translates to getting her hands dirty among the vines.
For Pink, winemaking has become another form of creative expression to sit alongside her chart-topping hits and you’ve gotta love her for it.
Having a celebrity invest in this truly authentic way perhaps gives the wine curious folk out there one more opportunity to be swayed by a little star power — bloody sterling effort, Pink.
Cameron Diaz
I could be treading on treacherous Kardashian-like cobblestones here but Cameron Diaz and her wine brand Avaline, a label that feels more Goop than Gevrey-Chambertin was co-founded with entrepreneur Katherine Power and it has very successfully invited a lot of wine curious folk to the cause.
Avaline positions itself in the “clean wine” category (I see you rolling your eyes). It touts organic grapes, transparent labels and no unnecessary additives — probably what most people reading this know as — you know — normal wine.
Avaline is pitched less like a vineyard tale and more like a lifestyle accessory, the kind of Rosé used to refresh after a hardout shopping sitch or an afternoon sesh with your pals.
Critics sometimes bristle at the vague “clean” language (we all nod our heads in agreement), but Diaz has nailed the wellness-meets-wine market. Think less mud on your boots, more yoga mat in your tote — take the Avaline X Stella McCartney collab for example. It’s fashion, bitches.
For the wine serious folk out there, it’s going to be hard not to call bullshit on this sort of shenanigans but with 240,000 followers on Instagram, Cam’s ‘clean wine’ is…er…well, cleaning up.
I’ve Not Seriously written about Avaline before and in an extremely positive light. I mean I pretty much surprised myself. The premise of this entire article was to talk about the challenges that exist for the wine industry when it comes to connecting with consumers (perhaps this article is Part 2?) and you see Cam and her mate Kath are speaking the language of an absolute shit-tonne of people out there. And those people (mostly women in this particular case) want to know they can feel ok popping a cube of ice in their glass of grape goodness without feeling like a total pariah at their post-pilates catch up.
I applaud Avaline and thank her for opening the door to make a good bunch feel welcome at the wine club. If they feel welcome for her, perhaps — almost certainly I reckon — they’ll feel ready to try a little chilled rosé from a little wine region in Aotearoa one day. Heck, they might even book a getaway to come and drink it here if we craft messaging that rides on the back of the work done by Cam and her pal, Powers.
Finally, our very own, homegrown star — Sam Neill — The Prop
It would be remiss of me not to include our very own Sir Sam Neill in this line up of bright lights and sparkly famous people doing worthwhile things for the world of wine.
I used to sell Sam’s wine, Two Paddocks for a while there. I’m very familiar with it and can even boast I have been endowed with my very own nickname from the man.
I once organised a private party on his behalf and at one stage during the evening I was seen sprinting down Ponsonby Road in my vintage Lisa Ho gold dress and high-heels chasing after some farker that had snuck in uninvited and stolen a glass of wine. No one minded that he’d flogged the vino but the wine glass was on hire and those bastards rob you blind if you don’t return everything intact. It’s a whole other story but suffice to say all glassware was returned and from then on I have been known endearingly as F.D.B. (Fierce Door Bitch).
Sam’s commitment to wine is less Pink-more-Francis as he doesn’t physically make the wine but to be clear, he hasn’t created a Disneyland-esk experience. Instead he’s nurtured something seriously committed to the land.
Two Paddocks is certified organic and Sam is as at home on the farm as any other woolly-jumper wearing, confident man of the land and he’s a super, passionate advocate of the industry. He lends his ‘celebrity clout’ when called upon by our small, tight-knit wine community at things like wine conferences. International media are made to feel welcome while they get struck by a little local #nzwine star power. If ever there was a time to let a star shine, it’s in a situation where we can all share a little of the rarefied air of fame and allow a little Neill to rub off on all of us.
Sam spends a great deal of time at the vineyard where lavender and saffron and a myriad of other goodies are grown on the farm. While the wines, made by local winemaker Dean Shaw, frequently earn international acclaim, Two Paddocks is just as famous for the Instagram dispatches Sam shares featuring his assorted paddock friends like grunting old pigs or cows who are named after other celebs. (Does this reiterate even further the power of the famous people??)
Where Cameron Diaz’s Avaline is a polished lifestyle brand for the women of the world, Sam’s approach is grounded, earthy, eccentric and refreshingly Kiwi: mud on the gumboots, laughter in the vineyard and Pinot that offers nothing more than top-notch, bloody delicious wine for all to enjoy. It’s authenticity versus aspiration — and Sam shows you don’t need a wellness halo when your wine is already world-class and downright drinkable — and importantly, accessible.
It’s a refreshing twist on the famous-person-owned-wine-brand and it does wonders to invite the punter along for the ride. If celebrity adds flavour to a wine, Sam’s inimitable touch brings the finesse to the structure, a little frivolity to the frown of a serious wine — something he expressed with great passion when talking to Guyon Espiner.
Conclusion
At the end of the day, wine doesn’t really need celebrities — the juice has been speaking for itself for thousands of years and our local winemakers are already bloody rockstars for simply getting juice into a bottle (there exist ego’s aplenty for sure). But when someone like Gaga, Pink, Diaz, Coppola, or our very own Sam steps in and splashes their star power across the label, they do more than sell bottles. They crack open the conversation. They make wine visible, memorable and sometimes even irresistible to people who might otherwise shrug and reach for a hard seltzer in a can.
Some celebrity wine ventures are deeply authentic, others are pure lifestyle spin — but together they remind us that wine is still a wonderfully delicious and desirable cultural prop worth fighting for. Whether it’s poured in the Hollywood hills, a Santa Barbara cellar or a muddy paddock in Central Otago, wine’s true job is the same: to connect us, to make us feel something, make food taste even better and maybe to add a little theatre to our everyday lives.
Look, I know there are hardly any boutique wineries around the world with the sort of money to pay for celebrity endorsement. I’m not really suggesting the industry has no future if we don’t engage with people who pretend to be other people for a living. All I’m saying is perhaps we should look to alternatives, to pop culture, to showcase wine to the potential wine audience that absolutely IS out there.
To conclude, fame and fermentation is not the only way forward when it comes to pulling us in to loving wine even more but if wineries are clever and creative, and can lean in to sharing wine in a way that taps into that experience and imitates a bit of that magic, then I reckon it might just go a long way to reigniting the love affair. It didn’t need to be Gaga in that first Dom Perignon video. It sure helps but it was the emotion of the moment that swept me away and - importantly - the no-hard sell of the product.
I love this industry made up of farmers, scientists, artists and collaborators. It’s a magnificent menagerie of like-minded, utterly driven folk making something truly delicious and life affirming from a plant. Amazing. While wine may be experiencing a bit a slump, this could be the industry’s opportunity. For the first time in decades, maybe hundreds of years, wine brands have a chance to reframe how the story is told.
I, for one, am dying to see them have some fun and get a little more not serious.
Honourable mentions:
Invivo and their celebrity partnerships with Sarah Jessica Parker and Graham Norton.
And it wouldn’t be a wine article written by a kiwi without mentioning that raving, surf-hungry, ex-All Black, possibly half-Italian, definitely Sir John Kirwan and his JK14 Wines.
we’re super grateful to our pals at antipodes water company. they supply us with the good water for our chats. antipodes is an artesian water that contains no chemicals, and when you’re pouring an organic wine that is gold. the mineral content also keeps the palate fresh so you can taste the wine the way the winemaker and nature intended you to. thanks antipodes, you’re the bomb. antipodes.co.nz
