Post Malone's Maison no. 9
Fellas, is it gay to drink rosé?
Today I am drinking Post Malone’s Maison no. 9, a French rosé from 2021 ($21.99 at Village Vintners).
Readers, I know what you’re thinking: Isaac, you seem like a huge fan of lo-fi Soundcloud rappers with face tattoos. But I have something vulnerable to admit: I don’t get Post Malone. Like, who is he? And why do his songs sound like that? This is all my fault. I can find something to appreciate in most popular artists, but Post is a blindspot. But it’s just because his music is bad. Still, it’s odd to know next to nothing about a literal mega-star. He has at least 7 songs with over a billion streams on Spotify. I have heard probably 3 of them. He is also currently the 12th most streamed artist on the platform. But I know not a single Post Malone fan. And I, like Ramona Singer, know a lot of people!
But Post Malone is a very distinct artist, worthy of cultural interrogation. I will try to approach this through his shitty rosé.
The first time I had Post’s wine, I found it cloyingly sweet. Lean produced in southern France. But on the second day I found the wine had mellowed a bit and I could detect notes of melon and blackberry. And for all of its sugar, I didn’t find that the wine tasted overly alcoholic in the way many rosés can.
But it’s a heavy, thick wine. I wouldn’t enjoy this poolside. I wouldn’t have it with a meal. It’s pretty much just bad.
The aesthetics of Maison no. 9 say the most about its appeal. Post’s rosé comes in a tall, svelte bottle with a long neck and a thin body (okay, dream body). The length of this bottle’s neck affects how one holds the wine, which seems like a purposeful design choice. I found I was grasping it with one hand like I would cartoonishly wring a duck, not like how I would normally hold a bottle from its base. It felt comfortable in my palm. Did I feel a little cool holding it? I mean, as cool as you can be while holding rosé. This I think is the primary goal of this wine: to make rosé a little less, well, gay.
In the promotional material, Post clasps his rosé with swagger like me. There he is, bottle hanging by his side like fresh kill — a hunter bringing today’s catch to the tribe. There he is, on stage taking a big swig of the stuff like its Bud Light (which so happens to sponsor Post). His rosé is for the boys.
Then there is the logo: a rose growing on a barbed wire fence encircling a long sword, a reference to the Nine of Swords tarot card. There is also a cross on it — not for any religious reason, I don’t think, but for the elements of the Catholic gothic.
Everything about it is pretty corny.
It’s funny that this misanthrope of a man, with that gruff singing voice and those face tattoos, would make this rosé. It seems like a contradiction: rosé for emo rappers. But maybe that’s the point. The wine leans into extravagance, from the shape of the bottle to the label. It fits into a larger sartorial trend of the masculinization of the feminine, especially popular in young white guys: a dude painting his nails, or wearing a dress, or sporting Chrome Hearts jewelry. All things Post does regularly. It’s a little like those shirts that used to say Real Men Wear Pink. Or in this wine’s case, Real Men Drink Pink.
Post was an original poster child for the lo-fi rap movement birthed by Soundcloud DIY production. But for all of his associations with rap and pop, I think he should be classified as grunge, in the Kurt Cobain mold of rock stardom. They are both distinctly weird guys who sing in a way that does not lend itself to casual listening.
You can hear it throughout Post’s music, which I did finally listen to. To be in touch with one’s feelings — to sing recklessly and emotionally — is actually the most authentic thing a corny rapper like him can do. He is the crooner of moodiness: as he told Rolling Stone in 2017, early in his stardom, ‘“I’ve always had a loneliness. I’ve always been anxious.’ He taps his skull and chuckles. ‘Big brain. Lot of thoughts.”’ He is in touch with his feelings, commanding an intimacy that directly contradicts his immense fame. I think of him like that Mom tattoo with an arrow through the heart: it’s only through his soft interior that he can define his toughness.
This rosé speaks to these same aesthetics of masculinity. In the words of Post Malone, “Rosé is for when you want to get a little fancy.” This is Post’s only word about the subject on the Maison no. 9 website. Which makes me think, gasp, what if he wasn’t really involved? Post’s ghost vintner in this project is Alexis Cornu, whose magical vineyard in the South of France the website never names. In fact, in my exhaustive ~single~ Google search, I found no information on the wine’s origins. What grapes were used? Where in the South of France? Which vineyard(s)? In fact, I could barely locate the wine’s vintage, banished to the bottom corner of the backside of the bottle.
This rosé, then, is not really about taste or for those who have good taste. But I am not resoundingly rejecting Maison no. 9. This gets to the varying reasons people buy wine. Wine is a drink, but it’s also an object d’art. Plenty of us pick a bottle simply because of how the label looks. How it tastes is secondary. Maison no. 9 is the real-life plot point from Emily In Paris, in which Emily (who’s in Paris) markets a champagne meant to be sprayed and photographed, not sipped.
I don’t say this as a negative. (As an elitist and a snob, I am legally contracted to say that.) Not every winemaker has to care about terroir. Sometimes it’s about the swagger of the wine, the peacocking of the person using it. To Post, it doesn’t matter if his wine is good. It’s about looking fancy.