Celebrities who own wineries: Sarah Jessica Parker

Sarah Jessica Parker’s Wine Has 70 Gold Medals and One Very Weird Bottle

Quick Guide — Sarah Jessica Parker’s Invivo X, SJP Wine

• Brand: Invivo X, SJP, launched 2019 in partnership with New Zealand’s Invivo Wines, founded 2008 by Rob Cameron and Tim Lightbourne
• Wines: Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc, Provence Rosé, New Zealand Pinot Noir, the low-alcohol Sevenly range, and a newly launched Spicy Jalapeño White Wine
• Price range: Roughly $15 to $20 per bottle
• The story behind it: Parker was already an unknowing Invivo customer through the brand’s Ireland distribution before the founders ever approached her
• Fun fact: More than 70 gold medals and three Wine Spectator Top 100 rankings, from the same brand that just released a jalapeño-infused wine

This summer, Sarah Jessica Parker released a wine infused with jalapeño flavor. The idea came from a TikTok trend. People were dropping fresh jalapeño slices into their glass of white wine for a spicy kick. Someone at her winery apparently watched that happen enough times to think, why not just bottle it.

I want to be upfront about how that sounds. It sounds like exactly the kind of thing that gives celebrity wine a bad name. A famous person’s team chasing a social media trend, slapping a name on it, cashing in before it fades.

Here’s the part that complicates that story. The same brand putting out spicy jalapeño wine also has more than 70 gold medals and three Wine Spectator Top 100 rankings. Its flagship Sauvignon Blanc has scored 90 points or higher from Wine Spectator in every single vintage since it launched. Both of those things are true about the exact same wine label. That’s a strange combination, and it’s worth actually looking at instead of dismissing on sight.

She Was Already a Fan and Didn’t Know It

Invivo Wines started in 2008, founded by two childhood friends from New Zealand, Rob Cameron and Tim Lightbourne. A mutual contact introduced them to Parker in 2018, and they sent over some bottles to see if she’d bite.

She already knew the wine. Turns out Parker and her husband had been buying Invivo for years without realizing it, through the brand’s Ireland distribution, where the winery also makes a well-known label for Graham Norton. She just didn’t know the name on the back of the bottle matched the one about to end up on the front of hers.

In 2019, the founders flew to New York to sit down with her and build a Sauvignon Blanc from scratch. That collaboration became Invivo X, SJP, and it’s still going.

Parker is a shareholder in the business, not a paid spokesperson renting out her name for a season. She’s involved in blending every new vintage. She works directly with Cameron and Lightbourne to shape how each wine tastes before it gets bottled. Cameron has said flatly that once he selects the base Sauvignon Blanc, he steps back. He lets her build the blend herself. Parker herself has put it plainly: she’s never put her name on something and walked away, because if she isn’t willing to drink it herself, she doesn’t see why anyone else should.

Even the label carries her actual handwriting. The “X” is a nod to how she signs her name. It’s hand-drawn and color-matched to a teal shade pulled from her own shoe collection. That’s a strangely specific level of involvement for someone who could have just cashed a licensing check and moved on.

The Skepticism Was Reasonable, and It Didn’t Hold Up

When the partnership launched, wine critics reacted the way wine critics tend to react to celebrity wine. Skeptically, and not without reason. The usual formula is depressingly simple. Someone famous wants a wine line the way they already have a fragrance and a shoe collection. A distributor finds a producer willing to put a name on a label, and eighteen months later you’re drinking something that tastes like it was blended in a marketing meeting. Plenty of famous names have put their face on a bottle without touching the process. The results usually taste like it.

Invivo X, SJP didn’t follow that script. Blind tastings kept scoring the wines well regardless of whose name was on the label. The Sauvignon Blanc alone has racked up more than 70 gold medals. It’s landed on Wine Spectator’s Top 100 list three separate times, most recently making their 2025 list of the year’s best wine values. That’s not a participation trophy. That’s a wine winning against bottles that have no celebrity attached at all.

Parker’s own sense of humor about the whole thing hasn’t hurt either. A Today show host once teased that people mostly associate her with a certain HBO show about sex. Parker didn’t miss a beat: “Maybe not so much sex, but sauvignon blanc.” That’s the kind of line that either comes from someone actually paying attention to their own brand, or someone with a very good publicist. Given everything else about how hands-on she’s been, I’d bet on the former.

The Price Tag Is the Part That Surprised Me

A bottle of the Sauvignon Blanc runs about $17. Wine Spectator scored the 2024 vintage 92 points. For context, plenty of wines with far less recognizable names charge more for less.

That price point matters more than it might seem. A lot of celebrity wine ventures lean into scarcity and status. A high price tag stands in for quality nobody’s checking. It’s the wine equivalent of paying extra for a logo stitched on the outside of a t-shirt instead of printed on a tag you never see. Invivo X, SJP went the other direction. It’s sold at Total Wine, Publix, H-E-B, Ralphs, and Wine.com. That’s the kind of everyday grocery and retail distribution that only works if people keep buying it after the first bottle. Novelty gets someone to try a wine once. It doesn’t get them to buy a case.

How to Actually Buy It

The lineup has grown well past that first Sauvignon Blanc. There’s now a Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc, a Provence rosé, a New Zealand Pinot Noir, a lower-alcohol Sevenly line, and, as of this year, the jalapeño white wine that started all of this.

If you’re curious but skeptical, start with the Sauvignon Blanc. It’s the flagship for a reason. It’s the one that’s been racking up 90-point scores since 2019, and at $17 it’s a low-stakes way to find out whether the reputation holds up. The rosé is the better pick for warm weather, made in the Provence style rather than trying to imitate anything Italian. Save the jalapeño bottle for a night when you’re feeling brave, or when you want to watch the person across the table ask what you’re drinking and immediately regret asking.

The Bottom Line

Every entry in this series turns out to have its own reason for being real. Sting bought a Tuscan estate because he fell for the region. Bocelli was born into a wine dynasty two centuries deep. Jay-Z turned a public snub into a $600 million Champagne empire out of pure, calculated spite. John Legend built a rosé around a summer he didn’t want to let go of.

Parker’s reason is stubbornness, plain and simple. She’s never put her name on something and walked away, so the Sauvignon Blanc didn’t win 70 gold medals because someone got lucky once. It won them because the person whose name is on the bottle keeps showing up to the blending table instead of cashing the check and leaving. Apply that same stubbornness to a TikTok trend, and you get a jalapeño wine that was apparently tested for months instead of rushed out in three weeks. It’s not two different wine brands sharing a label. It’s one very stubborn woman refusing to embarrass herself, whether the assignment is a Wine Spectator judging panel or a TikTok trend with a shelf life of about a week.

Frequently Asked Questions — Sarah Jessica Parker’s Invivo X, SJP Wine

Is Sarah Jessica Parker’s wine actually good, or is it just a celebrity brand? By most independent measures, it’s well made. The flagship Sauvignon Blanc has scored 90 points or higher from Wine Spectator in every vintage since 2019. It has also won more than 70 gold medals in blind tastings, where the celebrity name isn’t a factor in the score.

How involved is Sarah Jessica Parker in actually making the wine? She’s a shareholder in Invivo X, SJP and takes part in blending each new vintage. She works directly with winemakers Rob Cameron and Tim Lightbourne. She also helped design the label, including the hand-drawn signature “X.”

What wines does Invivo X, SJP make? The lineup includes a Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc, a Provence rosé, a New Zealand Pinot Noir, a lower-alcohol Sevenly range, and a newly launched jalapeño-infused white wine.

Where can you buy Invivo X, SJP wine? It’s widely available at retailers including Total Wine, Publix, H-E-B, Ralphs, and Wine.com. Bottles are typically priced in the $15 to $20 range.

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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, and John Legend’s LVE. Subscribe to the newsletter so you never miss who’s next.

— Kelly 🍷

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