Cameron Diaz’s Wine Brand Started a Fight With the Federal Government

Quick Guide — Cameron Diaz’s Avaline Wine

• Brand: Avaline, founded 2020 by Cameron Diaz and Katherine Power, founder of Who What Wear
• Wines: Organic reds, whites, rosé, and sparkling sourced from Italy, France, and Spain, including a Lambrusco and a Puglia-grown Bianco
• Price range: Roughly $22 to $28 per bottle
• The story behind it: Built on a promise of “clean,” ingredient-transparent wine, and it helped trigger an actual federal warning about that exact word
• Fun fact: Diaz once wrote that technically being able to chew, swallow, and pass something through your body doesn’t actually make it food

Cameron Diaz has never been quiet about what she thinks belongs in a human body. In her own wellness book, she made the case that just because you can chew something, swallow it, and eventually pass it, that doesn’t make it food. It’s blunt, it’s a little disgusting, and it’s exactly the kind of standard nobody expects from someone who spent a decade as one of the biggest movie stars on the planet.

So of course this is the woman who decided wine needed the same standard applied to it. In 2020, she launched Avaline, a brand built almost entirely on the word “clean.” Two years later, an actual federal agency issued a formal warning about that exact word, aimed at the wave of companies Avaline had helped kick off. Diaz went looking for a fight with sloppy ingredient lists. She ended up in one with the U.S. government instead.

How Did Cameron Diaz Start Avaline?

Diaz launched Avaline in 2020 with her friend Katherine Power. Power built her career running the fashion site Who What Wear. Neither of them had worked in wine before. Their pitch was ingredient transparency: organic grapes, no unnecessary additives, and actual nutrition and ingredient information printed on the label.

That last part matters more than it sounds like it should. Wine in the U.S. isn’t regulated the way packaged food is. Most bottles never have to disclose what’s actually in them. Diaz and Power built a whole brand around filling that gap, which is a legitimately useful idea. It’s the same instinct as the chew-swallow-pass standard, just aimed at a bottle instead of a plate.

What Does “Clean Wine” Actually Mean?

Nothing, officially. That’s the whole problem. “Organic” has to meet real, certified standards to appear on a label. “Clean” doesn’t mean anything in particular. No regulatory body defines it. A brand can print the word on a bottle and it carries zero enforceable meaning.

Critics noticed immediately. One wine writer called the whole premise “a commercial scam” within weeks of launch. Avaline advertised sulfite levels under 100 parts per million as a selling point. That sounds impressively low, unless you already know most wine sits well under that number anyway. It wasn’t a meaningful claim. It was a normal fact dressed up as a differentiator, the marketing equivalent of bragging that you didn’t add extra salt to something that was never that salty to begin with.

Why Did the Federal Government Get Involved?

By April 2022, the pattern had spread far enough that regulators stepped in. The TTB’s warning wasn’t really about any single brand. It was about an entire wave of “clean wine” companies borrowing the same playbook. All of them implying health benefits that no one had actually verified.

A TTB spokesperson put it plainly at the time: “We’re responsible for ensuring that labels are not misleading to the public.” That’s about as close as a federal agency gets to publicly rolling its eyes at an entire marketing category. Avaline was standing right at the front of that line.

Is Avaline’s Wine Actually Organic, Though?

Here’s where I want to be fair, because this part checks out. Avaline’s grapes carry real organic certifications from legitimate bodies. That includes CCOF and Ecocert, the same certifying agencies serious organic producers use worldwide. That’s not marketing spin. That’s a verifiable standard with actual paperwork behind it.

So the useful distinction is this. “Organic” is real and means something. “Clean” is the word doing all the persuading. It’s the one part of the pitch that was never going to survive contact with a regulator. Nothing sold as a personality trait ever does.

How Involved Is Cameron Diaz, Really?

Less hands-on than you might picture, but more than a rented name. Diaz works directly with Power on decisions around new releases, packaging, and direction. She still shows up in person at tastings when new wines launch. That’s a real role.

It makes sense once you know the rest of her. Diaz has spent the last several years mostly out of the spotlight. She told People she was “just trying to stay alive like every other mother,” splitting her time between her family and this company. This isn’t someone renting out fame for a check. She wrote entire books about what she puts in her body long before Avaline existed. A wine brand obsessed with the ingredient list is just that same instinct with a cork in it.

How to Actually Buy It

The lineup has grown well past that first Spanish white and French rosé. It now spans organic wines from Italy, France, and Spain. That includes a Lambrusco, a Cabernet Sauvignon, a sparkling wine, and a limited-run Bianco from a certified organic farm in Foggia, in Puglia. That last one sold out fast enough to earn a relaunch.

The rosé and the Sauvignon Blanc get the most consistent praise, both from professional reviewers and from casual drinkers. Expect to pay $22 to $28 a bottle. That’s a fair price for well-made organic wine. Just don’t pay it expecting a health benefit no one’s actually proven, no matter what the label implies.

The Bottom Line

Every entry in this series has its own particular flavor of true story. Sting fell for a region. Bocelli inherited one. Jay-Z built an empire out of spite. Sarah Jessica Parker shows up to the blending table because she can’t stand putting her name on something she wouldn’t drink.

Cameron Diaz’s story might be the most fitting one yet. She’s spent years insisting that being technically edible isn’t the same as being good for you, in a book, long before she ever bottled a wine. Avaline is that same argument applied to a different aisle of the grocery store. She built something real: organic grapes, real certifications, real commercial success. She just wrapped it in one word, “clean,” that turned out to be exactly as unregulated as the food standards she’d been complaining about the whole time. Even her own logic eventually caught up with her marketing.

Frequently Asked Questions — Cameron Diaz’s Avaline Wine

Is Avaline wine actually organic? Yes. Avaline’s grapes carry legitimate organic certifications from recognized bodies including CCOF and Ecocert. That part of the brand’s claims holds up to scrutiny, unlike the word “clean,” which has no official definition.

Why did the government warn wine brands about the word “clean”? In 2022, the U.S. Treasury Department’s Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau issued a warning. It said “clean” is not a regulated or defined term. Using it could mislead consumers into assuming health benefits that haven’t been verified.

How involved is Cameron Diaz in running Avaline? She works directly with co-founder Katherine Power on decisions about new releases and packaging. She appears in person at tastings for new launches. Her role is closer to creative direction than hands-on winemaking.

Is Avaline wine actually successful? Yes, by the numbers. The brand shipped 213,000 cases in 2024, a 49% increase over the prior year. That made it the 112th largest wine brand in the United States, during a period when the broader wine industry was shrinking.

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Catch up on the rest of the series: Sting’s Tuscan estate, Andrea Bocelli’s 200-year-old Tuscan winery, Jay-Z’s Champagne empire, Drew Barrymore’s Barrymore Wines, Andrea Pirlo’s Pratum Coller, the ongoing courtroom drama at Brad and Angelina’s Château Miraval, John Legend’s LVE, and Sarah Jessica Parker’s Invivo X, SJP. Subscribe to the newsletter so you never miss who’s next.

— Kelly 🍷

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