Avaline: Wine using Organic Grapes by Celebrity Cameron Diaz

Well-known Hollywood star Cameron Diaz and her close friend and partner Katherine Power have joined hands and launched their own organic wine label Avaline, (ah-vah-leen) according to  Press Release on Thursday, July 9. It is vegan-friendly, clean, and organic wine with Rose and White variants with grapes from certified organic sources. Produced in Provence in South of France, Avaline Rosé is reported to be crisp, clean and zesty wine with melon flavour. The Avaline White, is dry and mineral, made from Spanish grapes from Penedés. Both are available from www.wine.com at $20 a bottle and are also available online on the website which also mentions all the stores where it is available in 43 States in the US and keeps you abreast of new developments.

Drinking wine half her life, Cameron used to think wine was simply a healthy beverage choice. "My whole life I thought it was just fermented grapes. I was surprised to discover that the winemaking process could be manipulated in the winery with over 70 additives including acids, sugars and colouring materials,” and says, “When your mouth turns purple from drinking red wine, it is not natural. That's a colouring called Mega Purple. Traditionally, people just assume the wine they’re drinking is vegan. Most wines are not; they're filtered through either egg whites or fish bladder lining.” In most countries water addition is banned but in California there are a few situations in which it is allowed and in India, the newly formulated laws are often being broken.

She and Katherine had decided to educate themselves on the commercial winemaking process and were horrified with what they discovered. ‘Winemaking starts in the vineyard, with the soil and how the grapes are nurtured from the moment they flower on the vine. If you don’t drink wine with organically grown grapes, you’re drinking pesticides and chemicals that you don’t want inside you,” Diaz reportedly tells InStyle.

They believe starting with organic grapes is the most important step in making a delicious, clean wine. Not only do they use grapes free of harsh chemicals, they are happy that by using organic farming practices workers on the field are not exposed to them either. By starting with responsibly-farmed organic grapes, they don’t need additives to alter the flavour or consistency of the wines which are free of unnecessary add-ins like sugars, colours, and concentrates, with a label that prominently displays the ingredients.

The two women assert there's significance in women creating a wine brand in an industry still dominated by men. While conceding there are a few exemplary women in the wine industry, they hope female leadership becomes more prevalent. ‘To date, it’s largely an industry run by men and we saw it as an opportunity and not a barrier. We know how to make products that modern women crave, and hope our involvement contributes to more female-led brands.’

delWine is very hopeful about exciting some celebrities in Bollywood into starting their own wine labels and what better than some women chasing the dream of their own crafted wines. They may lend their name or face or create their own labels and even go the extent of these two women involving themselves in the whole process starting with tasting hundreds of wines daily in France and Spain.

Subhash Arora

This Article is dedicated to Indian Top Ten Women of Wine (WOW) instituted in 2013 by the Indian Wine Academy and delWine- Rupali Bhatnagar, Uma Chigurupati, Ritu Dalmia, Madhulika Bhattacharya Dhall, Sonal Holland MW, Kadambari Kapoor, Manisha Parija, Kiran Patil, Aeisha Sahni, Reva Singh with the hope that they might be able to influence some celebrities/women to start making their own wines. Especially Rose wine which is about to take-off in India. Uma is already a producer-partner in KRISMA - Editor

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