Hollywood has endorsed products for decades: cigarettes, perfume, hair color, facial products, and now wine. According to Wine Enthusiast west coast editor Steve Heimoff, everyone from Paris Hilton to Wayne Gretzky and Brett Favre are hawking their own wine brands. (Hilton's Prosecco comes in three fruit flavors, no less.)I'll admit I am sometimes sucked in by celebrity brands. As Eli Portnoy, a branding strategist interviewed in a New York Times article about celebrity endorsements, said, we're just a gullible generation who likes to live vicariously through the beautiful people. (It's not just this generation, of course: my five-year-old daughter can spot a Hannah Montana product from 20 feet away, and she'll pick Barbie toothpaste over SpongeBob SquarePants toothpaste regardless of flavor.)
A beautiful celebrity can sell me anti-aging cream, but when it comes to wine, I'm strictly a what's-in-the-bottle girl. I don't care whose picture is on the label or who is being paid big bucks to move it off the shelves, if it's a good wine at a good price. Generally, the more money put into the making of the wine and the less put into marketing, the better for my palate and pocketbook.
Yet Nielson reports that the celebrity wine market is growing, with Phoenix and Los Angeles leading the celeb-obsessed masses. It's true that wine-buying can be a confusing and intimidating process, and if you don't know exactly what you're looking for and you see Brett Favre's sweet mug on the bottle it might make a better adventure than an unknown brand.
Are you more or less likely to buy a bottle of celebrity wine, and why?
9-24-2008 @3:12PM Astin said... Less likely. I'm sure some are actually decent wines, but if that was generally the case, they wouldn't need celebrity endorsement.
I've had Akroyd's wines, and they weren't very good. Oddly, one of them improved tremendously when paired with spicy food though. He's a wine-lover too, and is very much involved with his wines because he wants to use his name to bring prestige to the Niagara wine region.
I was also unimpressed with the one Francis Coppola wine I've tried, but have heard he has a couple very good ones.
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10-20-2008 @4:27PM kevjohn said... I saw that Paul Newman had a wine, and I picked up a bottle a day after his passing. It was nice and average and priced exactly where it should be, about $8 a bottle.
I saw maybe four other celeb wines on the shelves nearby. I feel no overwhelming urge to try any of them. Although if it hastens her demise, I'll gladly buy an entire case of Paris Hilton's Prosecco.
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