Sommelier Tries 16 Celebrity Wines

Hey, I'm Sommelier Andre Mack.

And today, I'm gonna be tasting wines by these celebrities.

Does being famous mean that you know

how to make really great wine?

That's exactly what I'm gonna find out.

You know, what's really the celebrity's involvement

in the process of making wine?

Is it just slapping your name on the wine,

are you actually getting your hands in the dirt?

Is it actually your company?

Those are all things that are kinda in the gray area.

To me, I'm on a quest, just if it's good wine,

I wanna be a part of it.

We've broken up the wine into two groups.

We have musicians, and we have film and TV personalities.

Now moving on to musicians.

First up, we have Armand de Brignac

aka Ace of Spades by Jay-Z.

I feel like the guys on Unbox Therapy here.

Definitely flashy, maybe not my style,

I'm a little bit more subtle.

But, the truth is what's actually inside.

So we'll see.

Champagne is a region.

Wines can be sourced from all over that particular region

to be considered champagne.

This actually has the word champagne on it.

So this is champagne, this is the good stuff.

This is what you pay all the money for.

In movies you see the big pop

and all that other kind of stuff.

It's, you wanna open champagne quietly.

So you wanna twist back and forth.

And that was actually not that quiet, but I'll take it.

Ooh, it's yeasty, smells like bread dough.

Slightly grassy.

Lemon lime, pretty well balanced.

For me, I think at 350 bucks,

I could probably find something that has vintage dated,

that's older, that has a little bit more nuance

and everything to it.

The fact that at this price point

that there is no vintage is just,

I have questions about that.

It's not bad.

It's actually really good.

So in protest of the hundred point wine rating system,

I decided to rank wines with emojis.

And for this, I'll give this two champagne glasses.

Next up, we have Maison No. 9 by Post Malone.

This is a rosé.

It's in a fluted bottle, which is different.

Generally rosés, this is from France,

don't come in this particular style bottle.

Normally up north from Alsace they do,

but I think it's trying to stand out.

The sword matches a tattoo that Post Malone has.

It actually has a glass cap here instead of a cork.

These particular closures are found on wines

that are meant to be consumed young.

Generally speaking, you put wine in a bottle,

wine can age for years.

Those wines generally have a cork, which is porous.

So it allows air to kind of come in

and seep through the bottle over a length of time,

and kind of help break down the wine.

This is an airtight seal.

There's no type of oxygen, or air,

or anything coming into the wine.

So generally what happens is this wine,

as it ages over time, it will become reduced and reductive.

It needs some small bit of oxygen to help it age.

Great color.

It's pretty clear, it's not cloudy.

Smells like a little cotton candy, strawberry.

Kind of reminds me of like opening a can of fruit cocktail.

They used to come in cans.

I don't think they come in cans now, but.

Pretty structured, it's pretty well balanced.

I'm pretty surprised.

I wouldn't have thought that it was was decent.

It's pretty good actually.

You know, my mouth is starting to water,

which means that it has pretty good acid.

So if the sides of your tongue start to tingle,

that means the wine is high in acid.

When you say acid,

people think of battery acid and they cringe.

This is something different, this is a good thing.

At 25 bucks, I think this is a great value wine.

I think that it hits on all the things

that it's supposed to hit on.

I'll rate this with a smiley face with sunglasses.

That's a win for White Iverson.

So up next is LVE by John Legend,

a sparkling Blanc de Blancs.

It's Blanc de Blancs, meaning white from white.

So this is 100% Chardonnay grapes.

This wine is from Napa Valley.

Napa is just a premier growing region in the world.

So that generally comes with a price.

That's just actually trapped gas.

That's the bubbles, right?

They're trying to escape.

So like brioche, a little bit of creme brulee.

This wine has tremendous texture.

It's kind of velvety on the palate.

The bubbles are really soft, what you'd call the mousse.

It does taste like it has some bottle maturity to it.

It does taste older.

And as I look here, it's from 2016.

So this actually has a vintage on it.

So it's been in the bottle for quite some time.

It allows the wine to kind of mellow out a little bit.

I do feel like this wine reminds me of a lot of John Legend,

sophisticated, mature, plays the piano,

sultry kind of vibes.

This wine definitely has that.

Moving on to the next selection,

we have MYX Fusions by Nicki Minaj.

This says it's Peach Moscato,

blended with natural fruit juices.

It is kosher.

Oh wow, it's very peachy.

I get a hint of slight sulfur in the wine.

It smells like being in a hair salon.

A little bit of vanilla.

It's pretty sweet.

Not cloyingly sweet, not over the top sweet.

There's really no acid with the wine.

It's pretty one dimensional.

You know, I'm not sure if this actually

belongs in the category with everything else that,

the wines that we're tasting,

I'm sure that you can call it wine,

but this is something totally different.

So for me, you know, Moscato d'Asti

is a little bit more refined.

There is some fritz to it, there's some bubbles to it.

There's elegance, and layers, and these different things.

And it's not overly sweet, like this particular wine is.

I don't know,

it's just like the guy shrugging his shoulders.

Like I have no idea what's going on here.

Next up is Ciccone Chardonnay 2017.

And this is from Madonna's family.

What's most interesting about this particular bottling,

and somewhat frightening, it's from Michigan.

Michigan doesn't make great wine.

They're not known for making great wine.

This will be a first for me.

First impressions, it smells like a can of peas.

A little bit of lime.

It's really acidic for Chardonnay.

Rather bland, not much flavor, not much nuance.

It's just all acid, one dimensional.

Generally speaking, Chardonnay is not

a high acid grape, right?

It's kind of more of a blank canvas.

It's rich, it's round, it spends a lot of time in oak,

that kind of impart these other kind of flavors

that most people understand Chardonnay to be.

Buttery, you get oak, this wood to it.

I would rate this wine with a thumbs down.

So next up is Licataa.

This is a sparkling Lambrusco

from Raekwon the Chef from Wu-Tang Clan.

This is sparkling red,

which I think most people don't get a chance to see.

You get all the benefits of like a red wine,

but like served really chill,

and with a little bit of frizzante,

which kind of acts as like a scrubbing pad on your palate.

But at $25 price point, it does seem to come in

a little north of the traditional Lambruscos

made in that region.

But, maybe there's a reason for it.

I can see the mousse start to formulate on the top there.

Smells pretty earthy, kind of like wet dirt.

Smells a whole lot like Cassis.

Blueberries, raspberries, strawberries.

You know, it does have some tannin.

Tannin sucks the moisture out of your mouth,

kind of like black tea.

So it's pretty astringent, right?

So the inside of my mouth is pretty dry.

It does feel pretty luxurious for a Lambrusco.

This kind of has staying in power in that sense that it

has like this really kind of great texture to it.

Oddly enough, this does kind of feel like Raekwon to me,

in a sense of the easy thing here would be

to go to Champagne, but to go to a different region,

it shows like his exploratory side and his resourcefulness.

The quality's there, the fruit is there.

And then it has all these other elements,

the fact that it's Raekwon, the packaging.

So rating for this wine is gonna be

an emoji smiley face with stars.

Next up is The Dreaming Tree by Dave Matthews.

Cabernet from California.

Cabernet Sauvignon is considered

the king of all grape varietals.

Generally California wines are considered New World Wines.

And New World Wines tend to lead more with fruit

because they come from warmer places.

So I get boysenberries, blackberries, red currents.

Get like a tiny bit of cedar, just a little bit.

But I'm not getting any vanilla or any of those things

that would associate with the wine being in new oak.

It's got pretty good tannins, pretty good finish.

To me, it feels a little bit light for Cabernet.

I'd like there to be like a little bit more

body or structure to it.

But then again, it is 15 bucks.

It's like in the middle of the road for me,

it doesn't evoke any kind of real emotion to it.

It's Cabernet, it's supposed to be a big, broad wine,

it's supposed to be round, it's supposed to be rich.

There's no texture to the wine.

I'm not mad at this wine at all.

I feel like for a lot of people,

this falls into their price point.

And if they were drinking it, they should be happy with it.

And now we're going onto 19 Crimes by Snoop Dogg.

I'm not sure what Cali Rosé is.

It doesn't say what grapes are in it, but who knows?

One thing that I did pick up on the label

is that it's 10.5%, so that's a pretty low alcohol level.

So it leads me to believe that maybe it's sweet, right?

'Cause generally there's a pendulum between

sweet and alcohol level.

So this wine actually has a living wine label.

You need an app.

I don't know what he's saying.

I only let me label me.

I put my face on a rosé bottle.

There we go, he puts his face on a rosé bottle.

The AI's kind of cool on it,

but let's see what's actually inside the bottle.

The color looks slightly neon.

I'm a little worried about that.

Just kind of sends up a red flag.

Yeah, I get a little watermelon, a little raspberry.

Oddly enough, it doesn't smell like it's gonna be sweet.

I was wrong.

It's kinda, it's not overly sweet,

but it's a little too sweet for me.

It tastes like it has like artificial sweetener in it.

This kind of tastes more like

White Zinfandel than rosé to me.

White Zinfandel just has more residual sugar in it

versus like the dry style wines.

For this wine emoji I'll do a face with a teardrop.

Next up we have Fergalicious by Fergie.

This is a red wine blend.

I think it's a Cabernet blend,

so blend of several different grapes.

It is from Santa Barbara area from the Santa Ynez Valley.

So that that's promising to me.

Wine is like real estate.

The more specific you can get about where it comes from,

this wine doesn't say that it's just from California,

it says that it's actually from

a particular valley within California.

We have a little bit more information about

where the wine is, and so,

I always feel like you get a step up in quality.

And it's about 14.4 in alcohol.

It's gonna be a big boy, big wine, I'm expecting.

But from 2016, so it has some bottle maturity to it.

I'm excited to taste this.

The color looks amazing, dark, great hue.

Now that's actually Cabernet.

Medium body, medium plus body.

Old World component to it, it's not slightly green.

There's a little bit of acetate.

So kind of like fingernail polish remover smell that I get.

And when I talk in these terms,

it doesn't mean that any of it's bad,

but I definitely pick up some of that.

This is a decent bottle of wine.

I think that's worth 25 bucks.

Sometimes what makes the wine great is,

is somewhat of its imperfections, right?

So like this wine is not, it's by far not perfect.

But with everything together, it just works.

It feels energetic, it feels authentic.

I think it feels like old Fergie

and not National Anthem Fergie.

I'd give a smiley face, I'd give a glass of wine,

and I'd give a basketball, 'cause I do like the remix

that they made of the National Anthem that she sung.

Let's play some basketball.

Had to be there, sorry.

Now we're gonna try Harmony by Boys II Men.

I believe this is from Bordeaux.

It's a red wine blend.

They say that their grapevines

are played music twice a day.

I wonder what it is, is it I'll Make Love to You?

Some people say playing music in the vineyard

helps the immunity of the vines.

I'm not real sure about that.

You do what you believe.

It smells slightly mousy.

Now when I say that, that's actually a good thing.

I get pencil shavings, raspberry,

blueberries, lots of Cassis.

That's Bordeaux, it's got great tannins,

it's drying out my mouth.

Long finish, I can still taste the wine.

Kind of like iron, like I bit the inside of my lip.

That's a great representation of Bordeaux,

where it comes from.

Great quality.

It's good wine and worth your time.

To me, if I was going to introduce somebody into Bordeaux,

this wine would be perfect for that, right?

It's $20, so it doesn't break the bank,

but you get left with the true impression of what

Bordeaux wines tastes like and the experience.

I'm gonna give this the fire emoji.

Let's give them three of them.

Moving onto Sun Goddess by Mary J Blige.

So this is a Pinot Grigio from Italy.

You say, ah, I thought Pinot Grigio was white.

This is called ramato.

So this is basically a technique that they're using

in order for wines to pick up the red coloring.

They spend some time skin contact on the skins

to produce that color.

Smells pretty perfume, smells like flower bouquet,

white flowers, a little bit of peach,

a little bit of nectarine.

Kind of getting like a weird kind of cantaloupe.

Just that I never got cantaloupe on a Pinot Grigio.

I don't know if that's bad or good, but I like cantaloupe.

It's just kind of like a kiss of sweetness at the backend.

My mouth's not watering, so it's not high in acid,

but it's got some decent acid there.

The skin contact gives the wine a little bit more texture.

It gives wine a soul.

This is an interesting wine.

This is not the traditional just, oh hey,

I put my face on a label, nobody labels me.

Mary J. didn't invent this technique.

But the fact that she was willing to work with someone

who was doing something like this,

I think is cool, and there's respect for that.

In that way it feels authentic to me.

This is a great quality wine for 25.

And I think other producers in the region

could charge more for it.

I would give this a loudspeaker emoji

because I would want everybody to know about it.

That's all the wines for musicians.

Now we're moving on to film and TV.

We're gonna start off with Invivo X by Sarah Jessica Parker.

This is Sauvignon Blanc from New Zealand.

This wine is vegan-friendly.

A lot of wines are fined with egg whites,

which don't make them vegan-friendly.

All the particles and everything

kind of suck to the egg whites, and then you filter it out.

Smells like a little bit asparagus, grapefruit,

a little bit of white pepper.

Good acidity.

Got a pretty decent finish.

I'm still tasting the flavors.

Tastes a little bit more candied,

like some more like candied grapefruit.

I would say that this is typical, in a good way,

New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc.

I think what's missing for me is that

there's too much fruit.

Generally, there's other things, and more minerality,

a little bit more minerality to it.

But to me it seems really fruit forward.

I don't know if that's because of the vintage,

maybe 2020 was really warm.

But it is New Zealand's Sauvignon Blanc

for all intents and purposes.

It hits on those levels.

Just for me, I was just looking for

a little bit more on the backend.

Maybe I'll rate this wine with the anxious emoji,

with the teeth.

I'm just slightly anxious,

'cause it's just missing something else for it

to be a home run for me.

Moving on to Chateau Miraval 2020 rosé

by Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie.

This is a rosé from Provence, so the south part of France

where these wines are prevalent,

this is what they're known for.

So they say that the vineyards have clay and chalk soils.

Soil type is everything for wine.

Clay is porous to kind of let water filter through.

You have chalky soils that impart a really kind of

great minerality into the wine.

So soil is definitely a huge part.

Yeah, this smells slightly like cotton candy or candy floss,

strawberry, a little bit of kiwi.

On the palate, light plus.

There's some weight to it, decent acidity.

It tastes like rosé from Provence.

It's a good example of it.

I think it's worth 24 bucks in this day and age,

like everything's expensive.

I think I paid for a ear corn,

like nine bucks the other day.

So $24 for this seems fair.

And emojis, a guy surfing on a surfboard and a smiley face.

It was good.

And now Three by Wade, by Dwyane Wade.

Dwyane Wade, as you all know, played basketball.

So he was on TV.

So we're considering him a television personality.

This is a California white wine.

So 2019, Chenin Blanc is pretty famous grape

from the Loire Valley, high acid grape.

All the cool kids are drinking it these days.

Smells like honeydew melon, honeysuckle.

It also kind of smells like those jelly beans.

Like if you all have them in the bag,

you know it's all kind of mixed up.

It smells slightly sweet, like it could be sweet.

Even though I don't think that it is.

Really great acid, like really ripe honeydew melon.

A little bit of chamomile.

That is a great expression of Chenin Blanc in America.

That's pretty great.

I'm gonna pour some more.

This wine is for people who wanna experiment.

This is not a grape that you've heard before.

They call it white wine.

I don't know the reasoning behind that.

Obviously it is, it's called California white wine.

Due to the California laws, with its composition,

it could be called Chenin Blanc just because it's,

I think it's 95% Chenin Blanc.

This is made in partnership with Jason Pahlmeyer.

Jason is a great winemaker.

And the fact that he's doing this with Dwyane Wade is great.

He has serious people on his team,

these are real wine legend people.

It's not someone that he just picked out of the dark.

I would give it three basketballs, man.

I, this is, this wine is balling.

I like it.

So now we're moving on to Francis Ford Coppola

Diamond Collection Cabernet.

This is a claret, which was the English term

for Bordeaux red wines.

And this is from California.

You know that it is 2018.

It has this net on top, this metal wiring,

which was invented by someone in Spain to kind of,

this is what deterred counterfeiters back in the day.

So you couldn't open the wine.

You would know that the wine was open,

that it wasn't manipulated.

Old wines from Spain still have these.

Just gonna pop it like that.

All right.

Color seems a little too bright for me,

which means sometimes that they add other stuff to it.

Raspberry, blueberries, more blackberries than blueberries,

leather, cedar box.

Cedar box, meaning that it's had tobacco stored in it,

so there's traces of tobacco and cedar.

It's got tannins, got structure.

There's something off about the wine.

It tastes candied in a way,

there's a underlying sweetness to it

that shouldn't be there.

It has all these things,

but it feels more manufactured than anything.

But at 21 bucks,

I think that there would be a different quality level to it.

I rate this the wavy mouth emoji.

I can't put my finger on it,

but like I wouldn't pay 21 bucks for this wine.

Finally, Fresh Vine from Nina Dobrev and Julianne Hough.

This is Pinot noir, 2018.

This is California appellation.

One of my favorite grapes to drink is Pinot noir.

It's elegant, it falls in the glass, versatile.

They advertise this wine as low carb,

low calorie, and low sugar.

And this actually says,

it's the perfect paring for your active lifestyle.

So, there you have it.

I think it's horse [beeps].

I'd rather be more active in my lifestyle

and drink the good [beeps],

than drink wine with low calories, and carbs, low sugar.

But I'm anxious to taste the wine.

All right, it looks like Pinot noir,

smells like Pinot noir.

I get a little bit of Earl Grey tea,

cherries, some strawberry.

The wine is ripe, almost tastes sweet.

It feels like there's some wood treatment in the wine,

whether that's in oak barrels, or however they do it.

The alcohol seems pretty high,

it's saying that it's 13% here.

I would like the alcohol to be a touch lower.

But you know, to me, this is California Pinot noir

on a budget, at 19 bucks.

I think at 19 bucks, you could be happy with this wine.

Do I taste this as low calorie, carbs, or sugar?

I just don't even know what any of that means.

But you know, to each his own.

If that's what they're going for,

and how they're selling it, cool.

But I can't taste any of those things.

I can't taste that it tastes any different in that way.

I'm gonna rate this wine with a laughing emoji.

I'm not sure if I know what low carb wine is about.

After tasting all those wines,

there were some really great gems in there.

There was some wines that I wouldn't

be mad at them for making.

If I had to pick a overall favorite out of all the wines,

I'd have to say it was Three by Wade.

Going out on the limb

and experimenting with something like Chenin Blanc

really takes some guts to do it very well.

I thought the wines were solid

and probably at the top of this whole lineup.

My view on celebrity wines has not changed.

The whole idea, for me as a person in the industry,

in the wine industry,

we just wanna see more people drinking wine.

And if this is what has to happen to get more people

a seat at the table to realize that wine could be for them,

or that they have a place here, I'm all for it.

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