How do Kylie Minogue’s wines stack up?

Kylie herself isn’t in high-vis pruning vineyards in winter, or shovelling out fermenters during vintage, of course. But anyone who has lost the will to live can throw some money her way for a non-alcoholic rosé.

Kylie Minogue during the celebration for Kylie Minogue Wines' fourth anniversary. Picture: Helen Abraham

A wine label is the new “must have” for celebrities – and it can earn them rivers of cash. Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie have waged a bitter custodial battle over their lucrative Chateau Miraval property in Provence, Graham Norton lubricates his talk show with his own Kiwi sauvignon blanc that’s almost as shrill as some of the guests, and Jay-Z tops up his coffers with healthy sales of the glitzy Ace of Spades champagne he produces with Armand de Brignac.

Kylie Minogue at The Hotel de Crillion in Paris. Picture: Christian Vermaak

Cliff Richard also does it, and Snoop Dogg and Post Malone too. Sting does it with tantric tannins. But our Kylie does it better than most. Since establishing Wines by Kylie Minogue with UK distributor Benchmark Drinks in 2022, she has achieved sales figures for her cleverly pitched portfolio of eight wines that would make most winemakers in this country wishing they could be so lucky. More than seven million bottles have been sold so far.

Kylie herself isn’t in high-vis pruning vineyards in winter, or shovelling out fermenters during vintage, of course; but the collection features wine styles that sit comfortably within a wider Minogue milieu. She offers Prosecco in both white and pink iterations, a sauvignon blanc, and even a non-alcoholic rosé for those who’ve lost the will to live.

Throw a bit more cash her way and you can access her Single Estate Collection comprising yet another rosé, this one from Provence, a Côtes de Provence red blend and a pair of wines from her homeland – a Yarra Valley pinot noir made by DeBortoli and a Margaret River chardonnay from Howard Park. But like Jon Bon Jovi, who has made a killing with a Languedoc rosé he calls, in a fit of geographical and oenological confusion, “Hamptons Water”, Kylie has succeeded mostly by tapping into the global thirst for pink wines.

Kylie taps in to pink wines

So, what’s her standard $25 rosé like? It’s perfectly fine: a bit bigger and chunkier than I might’ve expected. There are clues in the colour. For me the best examples of this style have the palest pink blush, like an embarrassed Geisha. This one is in a darker realm, a bronzey pink, almost onion skin, the colour someone with olive skin might turn before the sunburn turns to tan. It smells of berries, the straw beds they’re grown in and a bunch of sun-warmed pomegranates. It’s a touch over-extracted, giving it a slightly hard edge.

There’s better out there, but there’s plenty worse too.

And sometimes it’s better the devil you know.

84 points.