Model and Actress Christie Brinkley has just launched her own wine label featuring Skinny Champagne – – Bellisima Zero Sugar ( a sugar-free organic Brut) along with Bellissima Sparkling Rosé (a sparkling pink wine with hints of strawberry and grapefruit) and Bellissima Brut (a dry Prosecco). All come from the Treviso-Veneto wine region in Italy. The label art is a colorful play on Botticelli’s classic painting, The Birth of Venus.
The 62-year old entrepreneur has long had a fondness for sparkling wine. She claims she drinks the stuff like it’s vitamin water: “Doctor’s orders: three glasses of Champagne a day! So I’m on it!” she said to The Coveteur. No surprise, then to find that her prosecco, called Bellissima (which means “most beautiful”), is organic.
“To be able to have a prosecco that doesn’t have the villain sugar in it is really exciting,” Brinkley to Hamptons maagazine. “If you’re dieting and you still want to have that little glass to celebrate with friends, then you have my Zero, and you’ll love the flavor and you’ll love the little giggly thing that you get.”
How did Christie Brinkley make a Zero Sugar prosecco?
By leaving our organic Glera grapes in autoclave for seven months, Christie Brinkley’s wine makers achieve a fresh sparkling wine with zero sugars or artificial flavors. Her website states that the taste is perfectly balanced and pleasantly acidic, it is velvety and dry, with hints of white flowers and grapefruit.
Brut champagnes can contain up to 12 grams of sugar per glass according to an article published in the Telegraph. The article continues to state that drier styles have become fashionable lately, partly due to hype over their low calorie content. A small 100-125ml glass of brut champagne typically contains around 100 calories, but a properly dry version has nearer 60 calories, hence its nickname ‘diet champagne’.
Christie Brinkley’s one simple food philosophy is to eat as many colorful foods in a day as possible. If it’s vibrant and colorful, it should be on your plate. She eats plenty of vegetables and sticks to bright greens, oranges, purples, and reds, and has been eating this way since she was 12.
“I believe that celebrating what we are grateful for with family, friends and Prosecco contributes to a healthy, happy and sweetly beautiful life,” Christie Brinkley told PEOPLE of the sparkling new venture.
Drinking & Diabetes: Do They Mix?
While moderate amounts of alcohol can cause blood sugar to rise, excess alcohol can actually decrease your blood sugar level — sometimes causing it to drop into dangerous levels. If you are in doubt about whether drinking alcohol is safe for you, check with your doctor.
TUNE IN to our Diabetes Roundtable podcast inspired by Hoda and Kathie Lee to learn about how alcohol impacts your diabetes.
Here’s Christie’s Bellissima Bellini Recipe
4 oz. organic Bellissima Prosecco DOC Brut or Zero Sugar Sparkling Wine
2 oz. pureed peaches
White peach slice
Step 1: Pour the peach puree into a Prosecco flute. Step 2: Fill said flute with Bellissima. Step 3: Experience Bellissima bliss.
As she says, “Dream big Bellissima dreams, and may they all come true!”
Divabetic (divabetic.org) was inspired by the late music legend, Luther Vandross and created in 2005 by Max ‘Mr. Divabetic’ Szadek, who, as Vandross’ assistant of 14 years, witnessed his boss, mentor, and friend struggle in silence and solitude with the diabetes and its related complications. Since its inception, Divabetic has presented outreach programs in 15 major U.S. cities, reaching hundreds of thousands of women, their families and health care professionals.