At Toronto’s impossibly grand Casa Loma, stars sparkling through the garden’s glass pavilion, guests gathered for a special summer “sunset concert,” an LGBTQ+ event with Canadian singers Jully Black and Deborah Cox. Its theme?“ Love Pairs with Everything,” but also pairing with everything is Cox’s newly-launched, free-flowing rosé, Kazaisu.
Cox is the first to admit the celebrity wine club featured members – Wayne Gretzky, Drew Barrymore, John Legend, Sarah Jessica Parker, Kylie Minogue, Cameron Diaz and Snoop Dogg – isn’t as exclusive as it sounds. And the celebrity rosé wine cellar is getting a bit full – Brad Pitt’s Miraval rose is considered a classic and Meghan the Duchess of Sussex has added two rosé blends to her burgeoning As Ever brand.
“There are so many celebrity wine brands now, but this is different,” Cox, 51, tells me over Zoom. “I actually drink Kazaisu at my house all the time.”e
How and why did she make and market her own perfect blend? Well, that’s a long story, maybe pour yourself a little somethin’ somethin’ here – that starts in the early ’90s alongside none other than Céline Dion. “I got interested in wine when I was singing background for Céline, who’d take us all around the world to different vineyards.” Sweet gig if you can get it!
Cox has long since been a wine-lover, but (still) doesn’t consider herself much of a sommelier. Making her own wine, in fact, never crossed the singer’s mind until some unforeseen free-time allowed it.
“It wasn’t until the Pandemic that I went looking for a hobby that would get my creative juices going. I craved people and connection and collaboration,” she says. Winemaking turned out to be just the thing. Moreover, it’d be a family affair with her manager-husband, Lascelles Stephens, and their three kids – Isaiah, Sumayah and Kaila. The kids’ names are imperative here, as their three-word portmanteau became the family’s brand.
“We had a good time sitting around as a family coming up with different combinations,” she says. The winner was “Kazaisu.”Choosing a name was the easy part. “Making wine’s been good, but it’s a lot of hard work too,” she says, recalling the four long years it took to bring Kazaisu from idea to LCBO shelves. Granted, it wasn’t all bad: “We had to travel to Provence to meet the winemakers and tour the wineries.”
Complicating matters, Cox was adamant that Kazaisu was made from organic grapes. “I don’t want a lot of colours and additives and chemicals in my wine,” says Cox, who’s hardly a health nut but tries to make better choices when possible. “People like myself want to live a healthier lifestyle but don’t want to give up certain pleasures. I still want to have wine but I want to know it’s a good, clean wine.”
While Kazaisu’s red and white varieties are still in the works, their rosé – after endless tastings and three official batches – is ready for market. Leading with a rosé, I tell her, feels like a bold choice. “Some people think rosé is just for summer, but they’re wrong. It’s great any time of day and during any season.”
Flavour is subjective, of course, but Cox’s Kazaisu tastes this way: “It’s lovely, light and refreshing with hints of peach and grapefruit. It’s not boldly citrus, but it’s a little citrus, and it’s dry because I don’t want anything too sweet.” Rosé is typically full of sugar, actually, making Kazaisu unique in its sugar content of less than a gram per glass. For the hangover-prone among us, with Kazaisu you almost certainly won’t catch the Irish flu.
And what should you pair Kazaisu with as you dine and – their tagline – “sip on luxury”? Cox loves a glass on the side of a big salad, or served with seafood like shrimp or scallops, though she promises she’s even had it with steak and it was absolutely delicious. “Try it!” she says, and then the Canadian songstress suggests you prepare yourself to be pleasantly surprised: “I think rosé’s about to make a big comeback.”
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