For anyone at the back hoping she’d swap pop stardom for scrubbing out stainless steel vats, Kylie Minogue is refreshingly honest that she isn’t involved in the winemaking itself. Her role is to taste, choose and put her name to the wine, and she leaves the making to the people who know how.
That honesty is rarer than it should be. Celebrity labels could easily be wrapped in stories of hands-on passion and harvest-time photo shoots, which would only make wine people more suspicious rather than less.
By being clear about what she does and doesn’t do, Kylie lets the wine speak for itself and puts the credit where it belongs, with Christophe Gautier and the team at Château des Anglades. It also makes the wine easier to judge fairly, since there’s no myth to see through first.
A growing range
Kylie Minogue Côtes de Provence Rosé turns out to be a fun Provence rosé. It’s dry and vinous, with hints of red apple, flat white peach and the thyme and lavender notes of the garrigue, and it holds its own against plenty of well-established names from the region.
Earlier this year, the entry-level “Kylie” Vin de France rosé, priced at £9 and released to coincide with her 52nd birthday, sold out three times over at Tesco. The Côtes de Provence is quite a different style from that first wine, and it has a much clearer sense of where it comes from.
The winemaker is Christophe Gautier at Château des Anglades, a 27-hectare estate near Hyères on the Côte d’Azur that is in the process of converting to organic. Kylie chose the final blend of 50% Grenache, 40% Cinsault and 10% Rolle from samples sent to her West London home during lockdown.
Kylie Minogue at The Ritz with her wine
The two rosés appear to be just the start. Her range begins with affordable wines from the south of France, and the original £9 Vin de France rosé has now been joined by a “Kylie” Pays d’Oc Merlot and a Gascony Sauvignon Blanc. According to The Drinks Business, the premium tier will follow the Côtes de Provence with a Margaret River Chardonnay and a Yarra Valley Pinot Noir.
The Côtes de Provence Rosé is limited to 672 cases and, according to the brand, is available only through kylieminoguewines.com.
Better the Devil You Know
Compared with many celebrity wines, the Kylie brand has an inclusiveness built up over decades in the public eye. That’s something wine professionals can easily forget, because not everyone is at the same stage of their wine journey, and a range like this offers several ways in, from an easy-going £9 bottle to something with genuine Provence character.
For her fans, the appeal of drinking Kylie’s wine is obvious, and a couple of glasses may well lead to a song or two from her three-decade career. In a year like this one, a little stardust doesn’t go amiss.
But even if you’ve never owned one of her records, this Côtes de Provence rosé stands up on its own merits, which is the nicest surprise of all.
First published on Instagram @winewomansong
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