Diane Keaton’s “The Keaton”

Put on your bowler caps ladies.

Sorry I didn’t publish yesterday, mom. I am sort of like Naomi Osaka in that I was on the top of my game but took a mental health break to watch the premier of Real Housewives of Salt Lake City. It’s so important to give yourself a break from something you do for three hours a week. Also like Naomi Osaka, I have a salad bowl named after me at Sweetgreens.

Also I’m listening to Bjork’s stupid new little album right now, so I might be etherial today. Let’s just say, it’s bassoon-forward.

Anyways, today I am reviewing Diane Keaton’s white wine blend The Keaton ($15.99 at Mel and Rose).

Diane — who you will all know first-and-foremost for playing Justin Bieber’s mother in the music video for Ghost — apparently has a signature drink, which bartenders have dubbed, inventively, ‘The Keaton’: red wine over ice. Maybe she invented the chilled red wine craze we’re currently in? She certainly invented dressing like a 1920s lesbian but being straight.

Like any good celebrity, Diane capitalized on the drink. The Keaton red wine first launched in 2015, a blend of Zinfandel, Syrah and Petite Sirah, all from California. The following year she released a white wine — which I am trying today — a blend of Pinot Grigio, Riesling and Verdelho, also from California.

Keaton described the wine to People Magazine in 2015 as an “unpretentious wine line.” It’s a smart idea: make a celebrity table wine at a price point that could allow it to become popular outside of its short-term novelty.

“I wanted affordable wines that blend grapes from different regions. Both wines are fruit forward and are well balanced. They go with any kind of food. And yes, I insisted on the twist-off cap!” she added in that interview.

Also, a percentage of the proceeds for Keaton's wines benefit the Alzheimer's Study at the Cleveland Clinic. As it says on the back of the label, ”The Keaton is a celebration of life. Dare to be the first!”

I don’t understand that last line: Dare to be the first. Literally no hate, but what exactly are you doing here that’s ‘the first’? Having a celebrity wine? Donating money to charity? Or is that a twisted Alzheimer’s joke about forgetting what others did before you?

But honestly, this wine is a good candidate to cross over into the mainstream wine world. It is, to use the most gauche buzzword, entirely “drinkable.” I found it to be refreshingly fruit-forward, light and crisp. The ice was necessary.

But I feel like she’s kind of lost interest in the wine and just wants to go back to renovating houses with so much subway tile. Like, she hasn’t released a vintage since 2016. Diane has done only one interview about the wine, on Ellen, where she mostly just confronts Ellen about avoiding her at Wimbledon (Dakota Johnson would like a word). I could only find The Keaton at one store — Mel and Rose in Los Angeles — and had to bring it back to New York in my suitcase.

I feel a lot of kinship with Diane, and not just because we both don’t want to talk about Woody Allen because we will get in trouble for our opinions!!! I used to see her around sometimes at a spinning studio in Los Angeles. There she was, clad exclusively in turtlenecks and wool pants, going so slow to the discography of Bebe Rexha.

Diane is, of course, an oddball. I feel like she would be the type to go to Coinstar to exchange her nickels for 37 dollars. I feel like she’s also the type of celebrity oddball you would see at the Zankou Chicken on Sunset, dining in.

Post-Godfather, post-Woody and even post-Nancy Meyers, Diane now is in that phase of her career where she makes movies that have literally the best cast and logline but end up being awful. They all have a budget of $12 million and make $780,000. Every one of her movies post-2007 (that’s an arbitrary date) should be my favorite movie ever: “A wealthy post-menopausal woman finds a second act doing [insert something silly but ultimately moving].” Contractually, she has to look at her husband (Sam Waterston, reading the Times on an iPad) and say: “when was the last time we had fun?”

Take Poms (2019): DK, Jacki Weaver and Pam Grier start a cheerleading squad at a retirement community. Are you fucking kidding me??? Or Darling Companion (2012): Diane Keaton rescues a lost dog on a freeway only for her detached husband Kevin Kline to lose it at their daughter’s wedding. A family drama through the vehicle of a dog. I’m pissing it’s so quaint. SPOILER ALERT she spots the dog on a mountain top — I’m not kidding — after looking out the window on a plane.

This wine feels like a perfect companion to this type of Diane Keaton flick. It’s good but not great. No one put much effort into it. But it’s fun, and impossible to hate.

I guess that’s why I don’t feel my usual patented cynicism towards this wine. I don’t think it’s a cash-grab. I think she was just like, “haha, hey everyone! Let’s make a wine today because I like wine! That’d be be silly and weird I’m silly and weird and oh boy, we have fun around here, don’t we? Can we do Rustic Canyon for lunch today?” This is my impression of Diane Keaton.

Ok bye I’m going to see Bros.