Kylie Minogue's Kylie Minogue Wines

Sampling a Cotes du Provence 2021

Today I am drinking Kylie Minogue’s Cotes de Provence 2021 ($15.99). It’s a rosè blend that’s 62% Grenache, 30% Cinsault, 7% Syrah and 1% Rolle.

I picked up a bottle of the rosè at 67 Wines near Lincoln Center, having just slept through seen Three Colors: Blue (1993). It’s sort of ghastly that I slept through saw this indie French epic and paired it with … a Kylie Minogue rosè! I wonder if Juliette Binoche can name a Kylie Minogue song.

I couldn’t find the wine anywhere in the store and had to break the emergency glass: “This is so embarrassing, but where do you keep Kylie Minogue’s wine?” This older gent, who had just given me a taste of a delicious Gruner from a small German producer, turned full-on Sand Face from the Mummy (1999) and escorted me to a back area where a three-paneled cardboard case displayed Minogue’s line of two rosès (a Cotes du Provence and a cru) and a Prosecco. I pretended to be interested in some other wines before I paid and left.

I had heard about this wine after I stumbled upon an Instagram post from a comedian who had attended Kylie’s party at the Carlyle Cafe a few weeks ago to celebrate the launch of her wine “stateside” (she first rolled out the wine in Europe in 2020). Kylie looked like she was having a blast at the event, which was populated by demon twinks who looked like Cristian Siriano, and Cristian Siriano.

Kylie went on Jesse Ware’s podcast Table Manners in 2020 and stated that she drinks her KM rosè with an ice cube, which is full on Kath and Kim shit. But I respect ethnic traditions, so that’s what I did, too. I had my first sip of KM rosè on a Wednesday night, my ice cubes floating around like little sailboats or alternatively, like little Bristol Stool Chart 5s. I was supposed to open up the bottle with a friend, who cancelled at the last minute. So if I pick up SALTY notes you’ll know why.

As described in the tasting notes, this wine has “alluring, expressive aromas of pink grapefruit, watermelon and lemon blossom. Crisp, dry and beautifully textured palate with zesty fruits leading to a long, silky mineral finish, textured palate.”

How textured is the palate of this wine that it was mentioned twice in one sentence? I mean, not to harp on nebulous corporate wine jargon, but how can every rosè be crisp? What does it even mean for a liquid to be crisp? Now I’m mad and there’s blood coming out of my wherever. But I digress. The wine is a beautiful pale pink and has a nose of strawberry and maybe some vanilla. It has slight effervesce to it, think: the day-old La Croixs littered around the kitchen of your summer beach rental. But the wine finishes quite nicely, with a bright acidity and a slight bitterness in the back of my mouth (maybe that’s the lemon blossom), which I mean as a compliment.

Even if she isn’t a household name in America, Kylie Minogue is literally the Ghandi of Europe (For a dollar, name a celebrity). And she now claims to have the most popular rosè brand in UK, having sold, by Kylie’s account, 5 million bottles in 10 countries. Her wine also has won two golds at the Drinks Business Wine Awards, which is something that is presumably made up.

This wine also fits into Kylie’s penchant for merch. Kylie is an authoress of a number of books, including “The Showgirl Princess” which promotes “positive attitudes to children” (SO TRUE!!). Kylie also has a line of home goods, which look like every fake product advertised at the bottom of every Daily Mail article that’s discounted 61%. I apologize for this Kylie Minologue (hahhhahhha) but … WHAT is she talking about. The lines are called exotic almost-words like “Messina Mist” and “Zina Praline,” which sounds like the John Travolta pronunciation of Melissa McCarthy and Liza Minelli, respectively. In all fairness, I am 99% sure Kylie does not know her name is being licensed by what is essentially Ali Baba Express. I can sleep easy (not on my Kylie Minogue duvet cover!) knowing these items do not exist.

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While Kylie Minogue — the singer, not the vintner — has never broken into the American market, those who know her looooove her. It’s been funny to see her become accepted (semi-ironically, like in a Madonna sort of way, maybe?) by the hip girls of dance music: think DJ Peggy Gou or gay people in Bushwick. Ask any faggota and he will tell you, knife to your neck, that she is the most underrated of the pop girls. Always the bridesmaid, never the bride.

I am not necessarily a weapon-wielding Kylie Minogue gay. It’s not that I dislike the songs. They’re fine. I’m just not commenting STEP ON MY FACE, MOTHER on every Instagram post, you know? Of course, Can’t Get You Out of My Head is one of the best dance songs of all time. And I liked her last album, DISCO (clever!) when it came out in 2020. The mindless mid-tempo etherial beats certainly inspired the girlinas out here. The production of that album felt like a pivot left, at least aesthetically, to fall in line with a younger, hipper crowd that drinks Pét-nats instead of rosès.

But Kylie stays Kylie-ing. At heart, she sings about being a dumb Australian hottie. She’s a bastion of basic culture, and I mean that with love, sent from my iPhone. Everything about her is perfectly boring. Her Instagram is pretty much just her in big hats in different places. She does not have Cher’s unhinged Twitter vibes, or Madonna’s Instagram filters. Everything is pretty buttoned up, perfectly PR’d content.

You can hear it from the platitudes of her songs. The one that’s like Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday it’s the weekend is so true. Because it’s like Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, it IS the weekend. We first learned that from God (of creator of the world fame), then from I Got a Feeling.

But that’s also what has made her successful. To my mind, one does not listen to Kylie Minogue for her lyrics, or really her beats. It’s the feeling of her voice: young and fun and fresh and light. Kind of like this rosè.

All of her licensing deals, the fake bed sheets, the wine, is a a perfect encapsulation of her brand. This wine is not bad, per se. It’s just … rosè. Listen, every grenache rosè from the Cotes du Provence will taste the same if chilled hard enough. Every rosè puts on her pants one leg after the other. Every rosè is blessed by the (Whispering) Angel of Gabriel.

Kylie’s rosè is easy, fun drinking. It is not difficult or heady. But that’s okay! There is a time and place for every wine, like there is for every song. I wouldn’t play Locomotion at a funeral. But I would drink this wine at a Bondai pool party with my best mates, eh.

In the words of Kylie Minogue, la la la la la!