Forget Grapes and Terroir: Choosing Celebrity Wine By The Star Behind It Tells You Everything You Need To Know
Photo by Vincenzo Landino/Unsplash Drink Features celebrity wine
What if, instead of heading to the store to pick up a bottle of Pinot Noir or Sancerre, you opted for a Hollywood hunk or a stadium rock god? Or perhaps you’re more in the mood for an athlete.
With the proliferation of celebrity wines out there on the market, that’s now possible. Celebrities have been in the wine game since the 1970s (director Francis Ford Coppola first filed for a winery license in 1978, and he sold his Sonoma County wineries in 2021 for an estimated $500 million+), and today, hundreds of celebrities are in the game, some with their own estates, and others who contract with established wineries to make a wine in a mutually agreed-upon style.
Celebrity wines are, almost by definition, palpable extensions of celebrities’ personas, brands and paradigms. For better, and sometimes for worse, a celebrity’s approach to their “real” work and craft—and how they spend their off time—often tells you everything you need to know about the quality and flavor of the wine they produce too.
Brad Pitt + Château Miraval = Aspirational Art
Brad Pitt cut his teeth in artsy, edgy blockbusters like Fight Club and 12 Monkeys before going on to found the culture-shaping studio Plan B.
In 2009, he was ready for more of the same but in a completely different arena: wine and farming.
“It was clear from the beginning that we spoke the same language,” says Mattieu Perrin, co-owner of the iconic Famille Perrin, the group behind Château de Beaucastel and Domaine du Clos des Tourelles, among others. The Perrin family was introduced to Pitt and his historic 2,471-acre estate in Correns, France, that he purchased with his now ex-wife Angelina Jolie through a mutual friend, the furniture designer Frank Pollaro.
“He understood that winemaking is long-term, generational, that it is about respecting the land and creating a beautiful evocation of that land in the bottle,” Perrin says. “The estate is filled with lavender, truffle trees, olive trees. It is more farm than winery. There are only 50 hectares and 124 acres of vines. So we decided to make everything we could from that biodiverse terroir.”
Their vision was very precise, and Perrin notes that it reflects Pitt’s approach to everything he does.
“He is an artist, and we often say that producing Miraval is like making a movie,” Perrin says. “Everything is considered and has to be of the highest quality. Every detail, from the bottle shape and design, is taken very, very seriously.”
The Miraval debut in 2012 made an enormous splash, and since then, Miraval has helped propel the entire rosé category to success.
“The rosé market was minute when we began, but we were convinced that it should be its own category, alongside red, white and Champagne,” Perrin says. “And today, it is. It is art, but it is also luxury, and it is accessible in a way a lot of art and luxury is not.”
Château Miraval Rosé has now been joined by an entry-level Studio Rosé, which typically retails for around $15, compared to the O.G., priced around $24.
Tony Parker + Château La Mascarrone, Champagne Jeeper, Michel Reybier Champagne = The Future, Rooted in the Past
The four-time San Antonio Spurs NBA champion Tony Parker caught the wine bug early, but the lessons he learned on the court shape his approach to wine today.
“I’m French, and wine is part of my culture,” Parker says. “When I retired five years ago, I knew I wanted to do something with wine, but it’s so hard to find the right opportunity in France because wineries usually stay in the family.”
But Parker’s deep interest in wine—he and head coach Gregg Popovich held legendary wine dinners and have been credited with inducting the entire NBA into the cult(ure) of viticulture—earned him powerful friends in wine. One was French businessman Michel Reybier, who has a portfolio of French and Hungarian wine brands.
In 2022, the pair decided to work on developing three brands together: Provence’s Château La Mascarrone, Champagne Jeeper and Michel Reybier Champagne. Parker credits fellow celebrity oeno Pitt with his love of rosé.
“The first rosé I loved was Miraval,” Parker says. “At this point, I am still learning. As I did with basketball, my goal at this point is to observe and learn from the best. I have done harvests, and I taste the wines at every stage, follow and learn. Our goal is the same: to make the best wine we can in the most natural way possible.”
Basketball is fast; wine-growing and -making is slow. But in both games, Parker is committed to crafting an excellent product that reflects but also transcends that particular moment in time.
Leonardo DiCaprio + Champagne Telmont = Environmentalism and Luxury
While Leonardo DiCaprio is probably best known for his wild parties and Oscar-winning acting roles, he is also an environmentalist. DiCaprio’s activism, instead of his acting, helped inspire friend Ludovic du Plessis at a key time in his career and life.
“He is actually the one who planted the seeds of sustainability in my mind,” says du Plessis. “Leo is very rigorous about science. He was constantly pushing me and recommending documentaries like Can We Cool the Planet? This was right around the time that I was trying to figure out [what] my next career step would be. I wanted to find a business with purpose, and I have three kids who were also pushing me to do more for the planet.”
Du Plessis decided to buy a Champagne house, and when he discovered Maison Telmont, he also stumbled onto an irresistible opportunity.
“I was able to persuade the fourth-generation wine grower and cellar master Bertrand Lhopital to stay on board because I believed in the terroir and what he was doing but wanted the house to earn more recognition,” he says. “I realized that Leonardo would push me, in a science-based way, to create the most eco-friendly product we could.”
Without sacrificing the luxury and opulence of a well-made Champagne for a second, DiCaprio signed on as investor and has, as predicted, pushed Telmont to do more for the planet. And when du Plessis told Rémy Cointreau that he would have to resign from his position overseeing the spirit group’s cognac Louis XIII, they wanted in too.
Now, amid a general downturn in the wine market, Telmont has enjoyed double-digit growth year after year since he joined the house as president and shareholder, despite embarking on multiple audacious projects, from transitioning all estate and grower vineyards to organic, producing a completely organic cuvée and teaming up with glass manufacturer Verallia to produce the lightest bottle ever for Champagne.
“Chemicals are poison, and the bottle is 30% of a wine’s carbon footprint,” he says. “We want to be radical environmentalists, but we also want to have fun! Leonardo keeps pushing us to do both.”
John and Jesse Bongiovi + Hampton Water = Endless Beach Party
When a rock ‘n’ roll dad and a football-playing son get together for happy hour, drinking rosé may not be their most expected tipple.
But John and Jesse Bongiovi’s Hampton Water rosé, produced in France’s Languedoc-Roussillon region with the organic biodynamic wine powerhouse Gérard Bertrand, has become a staple in their house, not to mention the aspirational, party-hearty place (the Hamptons) that inspired it and the 50+ countries it’s shipped to.
Rosé is, after all, all about the party.
“The collaboration with Gerard has been incredible,” Jesse explains. “When we first came to him with the idea, he explained that if we wanted to find success, we would need to create a serious wine that would stand the test of time.”
Today, it’s the number three-selling rosé in the U.S. and has received four 90-point ratings in Wine Spectator.
Guess Bertrand was onto something.
There are, for the record, plenty of celebrity wine bloopers too. (And perhaps like the winners, they shouldn’t come as a surprise either). Dan Akroyd’s “one-dimensional” pineapple, butterscotch and vanilla Chard? Hard pass. Same on Jeff Gordon’s “thin, unfussy” Cabernet Sauvignon with notes of bell pepper and asparagus.
Thirsty, but don’t want to overthink it? Forget the grapes, and shop by celebrity.