Lisa Rinna's Rinna Rosè
You can finally, er, "own it baby" (sorry).
I am writing this with COVID-19 and I actually wouldn’t mind if I lost my sense of taste right about now because I am reviewing Lisa Rinna’s goddamn rosè brand. Nevertheless, my determination to still write this newsletter — read by over tens of people — is Purple Heart worthy.
There’s a trepidation I have in reviewing Housewives products. I do not want to be perceived as a Bravo troll named Mattt who records a podcast called, like, OhNoSheDizn’t! from my disgusting studio apartment on Willoughby. Though even while rewatching some RHOBH episodes as research, I felt the pangs of returning home; like I wanted to get up and dance like a gay 8-year old on the Ellen Show. At the end of the day, these are my girls.
A good Real Housewife knows two things: neglect your children and sell fake products. Each one of them a regular Elizabeth Holmes on Ozempic.
Selling things on reality TV is just good business: the salary for appearing on one of these shows is actually quite low, so hawking scams — be they toaster ovens, Christian-based jewelry or three-wick candles — is rather lucrative. If you are throwing tequila sodas at women, shouldn’t you be throwing your own brand of tequila? That’s just called vertical integration, luv. I went to Wharton (to pee, once).
And Bravo fans will buy anything. Like Holy Water blessed by the Pope, we feel we can obtain some sort of clarity in every patch of Zarin fabric. Bravocon, the annual gathering of malnourished twinks and women from North Carolina, essentially retrofits the Javitz Center into an Etsy mall, with each Housewife able to set up their little Square readers and sell hats we know they will forget to ship.
Lisa Rinna is no stranger to this. She is a walking billboard with a bangs-and-back haircut: she has no less than a line of dusters at QVC, a suite of beauty products and is the spokesperson for adult diapers. That’s kind of why we love Lisa Rinna. She is a bottomless pit of shamelessness and opportunism. What’s a little more rosè?
The Joker origin story for Rinna Rosè begins on the show in 2019. In season 9, our fearless ladies are at a wine tasting in Provence. A few drinks in, she has an epiphany: “I’d like to be the new rosè seller.” So she began working with her husband Harry Hamlin and Prestige Wine grou on the perfect formula for a rosè from “the South of France.” They also make a Brut rosè.
We hadn’t heard any updates about the brand until this season, when the girls head over to Rinna’s house for a tasting of her Rosè, which at this point is still in beta mode. Lisa is wearing a full Fendi silk set using a leaf blower. She has to pry her guests away from talking about Crystal’s bulimia to try her wine, which everyone likes. We see someone named “Marissa” running around who, we are told in a chyron, is the brand manager of Rinna Wines, but a Google search produced virtually no information. I think the brand manager must be Lisa Rinna with a glue stick.
“I have pizza and charcuterie,” Lisa says. The tasting is over.
As the website says, “Lisa Rinna wanted to curate French sparkling wines that lived up to her refined standards after going on a spontaneous girls’ trip and indulging in the best way possible—with her girlfriends.” Truly, who is the copy editor for Rinna Rosè? Like, we get it: this wine is for girl time when you’re hanging with the girls (on your girls’ trip).
One of my favorite things about this wine is that it gets into fights on Instagram. The wine responds to every commenter who would “rather drink bleach than drink your shitty wine,” with something like “then do it, fat!” One of my favorite fights the wine account got into was with someone named @decadent_fagotry. Rule number one of business that I heard while sitting down to pee in a Wharton bathroom: don’t cyberbully your customers!!!!!
But that episode is probably the last time we will hear about Rinna Rosè on the show because she got fired, which was announced on January 5th. She claimed — like a politician dogged by a sex scandal — that she quit so she could spend more time with her family and pursue other opportunities. Okay, go piss girl!
And oddly enough, it was celebrity alcohol that got Lisa fired. While on a trip to Aspen this season, Lisa orders her “friend Kendall Jenner’s” 818 tequila, which is perceived by Kathy Hilton as a slight, after she dutifully marketed her own Casa Del Sol tequila all season long.
This spurred an off-camera fight between Lisa and Kathy, with Lisa alleging that Kathy called a local DJ an “old fucking fag” (lol). But that was no matter to the gays, who all took Kathy’s side because she is really funny. Bravo fans had soured on Lisa, who had just become fully too dark.
The amount of free advertisement Lisa is losing for Rinna Rosè is certainly a blow. She’ll have to make a lot more dancing videos if she wants to move a case.
And that’s a shame because Rinna Rosè is kind of better than it needs to be? As a Housewives product it’s exceptional, which is not saying much. And It’s probably the best of the many celebrity rosès I have tried on here. It’s a pale rosè without much residual sugar. It’s uncomplicated and refreshing, perfect for your girls’ trip with the girls (who are, in fact, your girls).
Editor(me in a wig)’s note: I’m going with mommy to every Brooklyn graphic designer in 2017’s favorite international destination: Oaxaca! See you in two weeks.