Cameron Diaz has been trending lately. But not in her role as a Hollywood actress but rather as an entrepreneur and wine connoisseur. Yup, like so many other celebrities, Cameron Diaz has decided to embark on a path towards entrepreneurship with her brand of organic wine — Avaline.
Why did Cameron Diaz start her wine brand?
Cameron Diaz has always loved two things — wine and organic living. She ensures that all her foods and beverages are organic, i.e., naturally-produced, vegan, and free from unnecessary chemicals and additives. She just assumed, as do most people, that wine is naturally organic. After all, wine is simply fermented grapes, right?
Nope! Much to her dismay, Diaz recently discovered that wine is far from organic. Most wine bottles contain dozens of additives, colorings, chemicals, artificial flavors, and other unnecessary components.
Traditional wine brands use chemical fertilizers, pesticides, and other such chemicals to address the issue of pests, insects, and other organisms that harm the grapes. They often filter the wine through the fish bladder, egg whites, or other animal byproducts. And they add artificial flavors and colors to enhance the wine’s flavor profile and desirability.
Do you know how your tongue turns red after drinking red wine? That’s not natural — that’s because of an artificial coloring called Mega Purple!
Cameron Diaz also found that most wine brands marketed as “organic” don’t truly live up to that name. That’s because the wine industry is incredibly unregulated. For wine brands to use the “organic” label, they have to only meet one criterion — avoid using sulfites, a common preservative.
As long as they avoid sulfites, wines can be called organic even if they contain a hundred other chemicals and additives. And that’s just NOT right.
Shocked by her discoveries, Cameron Diaz embarked on a tour of several organic vineyards around Europe with her entrepreneur friend Katherine Power to learn about organic wine. She learned about organic wine practices to produce a bottle of wine that truly embodies the “organic” label, and Power endeavored a worthwhile business pursuit.
Together, they gave birth to Avaline.
What makes Avaline different from other organic wines?
Avaline is born of passion and business savvy.
Avaline is a truly organic, vegan, and delicious wine brand. Cameron Diaz has used completely natural and organic means of production for this wine brand. The production process doesn’t include any unnecessary chemicals, pesticides, fertilizers, colorings, artificial flavors, or other additives of any kind.
Instead, Avaline has been produced using the power of biodiversity. Instead of using pesticides to kill the harmful insects, the production process has included other insect species or organisms to fight off the harmful series. As such, the power of nature has been utilized to ensure Avaline remains true to its title.
Furthermore, Avaline is a completely transparent wine brand. Each Avaline bottle features a large label that lists out all the ingredients involved at every stage of the production process. Although the wine industry is unregulated, Diaz wants her consumers to know exactly what they’re putting into their bodies.
As such, Avaline is organic, vegan, delicious, and transparent!
Cameron Diaz and Katherine Power Were Grossed Out By What Was In Wine, So They Made Their Own
Their new wine brand, Avaline, is a labor of love for these best friends and business partners; they even came up with the name using a baby-naming website.
Cameron Diaz and Katherine Power believe they became friends because of their deep interest in wine and health. (The actress and businesswoman met through Nicole Richie, Diaz’s sister-in-law and a long-time friend of Power’s.) They realized over drinks one afternoon a few years earlier that, while they had moved to an agricultural diet and tidy skincare, they had no understanding what was in the wine they had been enjoying for half their lives.
As a result, they chose to inform themselves on the industrial winemaking process, and what they found shocked them. “It all begins in the vineyard, with the land, and with how the grapes are treated from the time they are planted on the vine. You’re consuming pesticides when you’re not drinking wine made from organically grown grapes, and that’s not something you want inside of you,” Diaz tells InStyle.
The women turned to organic, naturally grown wine from a local specialty store, with “life-changing” results, according to Power. (It’s still unclear whether natural wines without chemicals help with hangovers, but many converts say they seem much better after switching.) “It affected both our physical and mental well-being. However, the issue was that it was extremely difficult to locate. We believed we could fix the supplier problem and make it accessible to everyone.”
