Christie Brinkley's Bellissima Prosecco

Get black out without the guilt!

"Open your eyes to the beauty that surrounds you. Smile, and in those moments remind yourself: Life Is Bellissima." -Christie Brinkley

Ciao, everyone. I missed you last week. I missed the stage. I am, ultimately, Roxie Hart.

Speak of the devil: we have a former Roxie Hart’s wine brand today!

I must give credit to Ergisa, my very own Medici, for making me aware of Christie Brinkley’s Bellissima. Unfortunately my first thought was: who is Christie Brinkley again? In my defense, I know so many people already. And sometimes you can’t really know a person until you try their zero-sugar Prosecco.

Hubba hubba!

I think I knew she was a model? Not a supermodel, just a nice swimsuit model who was on the cover of Sports Illustrated a bunch in the late ‘70s, early ‘80s. She’s hot in that very Men’s Health 100 Hottest Women kind of way.

The era of the model is dead — Tyra Banks is an ice cream maker now; even Gigi Hadid has given up and knits those little cashmere sweaters I kind of want. But anorexic Prosecco is fun! This is what ‘80s models should be doing. Do not go bloated into that good night.

Legend has it that she was an art student in Paris and got discovered in a post office by the photographer Errol Sawyer. At the height of her career, she was married to drunk-driver Billy Joel, who wrote Uptown Girl about her. She tried to pivot to acting, but here is the complete list of characters she’s played and you tell me if she became the next Angelina Jolie: The Girl in the Ferrari, herself, herself, The Girl in the Ferrari, Penelope Graybridge, herself, Gayle Gergich, herself, herself, herself/lemur. (guess where the last one is from)

Now, at 71, Christie is very morning talk show. Her camisole transitions from day to afternoon seamlessly: from a segment on gut health on The Doctors to a segment on dog rescues on The Talk while Sharon Osbourne slumps into a bowl of kibble.

There’s something very Sally O’Malley about her. I’M FABULOUS, she threatens herself in the mirror each morning, LIFE IS BELLISSIMA!!! All of her tabloid coverage is about her showing off legs in white swimsuit ahead of 70th birthday or her saying that ‘gratitude’ keeps her young at 68 or embracing her gray hair at 69. She’s constantly “calling out the trolls” who attack her wrinkles. And I feel it’s a bit thou doth protest too much. Maybe YOU think aging is actually disgusting and you are outsourcing that shame onto these supposed haters? Yeah, I’m on one today…

I mean, to make a zero-sugar Prosecco means you have to be a little bit obsessed with your image. Even the name Bellissima doesn’t just mean beautiful, but “most beautiful” in Italian. As she told CBS News when she started the brand in 2016: “it's zero sugar, it's zero carbs. This is safe for people with diabetes, for people on a diet." Yes — two very similar groups!

It’s funny to see her try to appear dignified and age gracefully but then also open herself up to television horrors. She’s very Valerie Cherish. She went on Dancing With the Stars in 2019 but had to drop out because she broke her wrist. Or so she said. Wendy Williams thought it looked “fake as hell.” Lolll I believe Wendy. I’m sure she gave up doing the Argentinian tango and pulled a Lisa Vanderpump. Gleb or Zeb got pissed. I bet Christie wanted to say something nasty back but couldn’t because, remember, she’s dignified and aging gracefully.

Wait it’s totally fake

It goes without saying that she has an HSN line. TWRHLL, she says, is “like the Hamptons, it's kind of classic, but with a little twist.” I personally cannot spot the twist in her $59.99 flair jeans. How is TWRHLL pronounced? Towerhill? Or is it Twirl spelled all crazy?

But apparently being a cheesy biddy works. Christie went on HSN last year to sell her Bellissima Prosecco and in just 25 minutes she sold nearly 30,000 bottles — worth $400,000. Well I’ll eat my shorts!

She started Bellissima in 2016 after two guys who owned a vineyard in Veneto in northern Italy approached her to make wine because they saw her appreciation “for all things organic on social media.” I love to be organic on social media. Christie is SO organic, in a ‘90s sort of carrot-and-hummus way. But she’s been doing the brand for almost 8 years so good for her. It must make a ton of money.

The wine is made with Glera, Pinot Grigio and Pinot Noir. They use the Long Charmat Method to make the wine, which leaves zero residual sugar after it is double-fermented in tanks. Sparkling wine in the traditional method has added sugar because yeasts convert it to alcohol.

I drank this wine last week with my friend Eliza and watched the Fox game show The Floor. It’s a show where you can say things like “no one knows pizza toppings like I do” and it makes total sense. But then you realize everyone knows pizza toppings the same amount. How can a show about naming common items be so addicting? I just wanted to show Eliza a few minutes of it. But then, she was hooked. As we watched, for the next two hours, we poured ourselves more and more Bellissima — until the bottle was empty. And you know what? I felt fine. Barely tipsy. Though it allegedly has an ABV of 11.5%. Maybe I briefly took on the alcohol tolerance of a 71 year old model. You just know Christie, like her swimsuits, loves to get high-wasted (this is f r e e ).

But the fact that it’s so free of things — sugar, carbs, it’s also vegan — maybe means it tastes bad. “Guilt free” wine as a concept makes me sad. I want to tell Christie that you can buy normal wine and just drink less of it.

Eliza and I both agreed that it smelled like fresh diaper. Clean, almost sanitary, with that “lemon-lime” acidy profile. The bubbles were quite large but it tasted thin, almost negligible.

The good news though: it’s only 90 calories a serving so you can drink 2, 3 bottles and not feel bad when you’re confronting your husband who cheated on you with a Hofstra Delta Gamma at the Montauk Surf Club last August. He’s covered in your spit as you slur ‘life is bellissima’ over and over on him.

Arrivederci, bellas!