Nina Dobrev and Julianne Hough Unveil New Vegan Wine Brand

Actresses and best friends Nina Dobrev and Julianne Hough have just announced a business venture together, launching a vegan wine brand named Fresh Vine Wines. The duo’s wine brand will be crafted in Napa, California without any of the animal ingredients or fining agents often found in wine. The vegan wine brand will steer away from traditional wine ingredients in favor of a more compassionate approach. Typically, wine uses albumin and isinglass, derived from egg whites and fish bladders in the wine refining process. Many people do not know that wines include these animal-based ingredients.

“We’re the biggest animal lovers,” the duo told VegNews. “We can’t walk down the street without stopping to pet every single dog along the way, so it’s incredibly important for us to align with companies that share our point of view. We also want to be doing our part to be good citizens and help protect the environment through the use of no animal ingredients or processes.”

Nina Dobrev and Julianne Hough Launch Cruelty-Free Wine Brand

The best friends partnered with award-winning Napa valley winemaker Jamey Whetstone to create their vegan wine brand. The course of development took two years, driven by a desire to create a good-tasting, low-calorie, fully vegan wine. The plant-based wine market is still growing, but there’s still a wide gap in the industry. Fresh Vine Wines use proprietary natural winemaking processes with hand-selected grapes from California. The final product is a collaboration between the best friends, leading grape growers, and a panel of testers that ensure that the wine tastes delicious.

“Julianne and I bonded over having similar core values and lifestyles. We’re both incredibly busy, but we find time to not only prioritize work but find it very important to enjoy life to its fullest,” Dobrev said. “When we decide to venture into the wine industry we wanted to create something that reflected who we are, and hopefully to bring people together in this extremely uncertain time. We both think it’s incredibly important to enjoy every single moment with the people you love and find connection through enjoying the simple pleasures in life. That for us is laughing and indulging in our favorite tastes. That to us is Fresh Vine wine."

The first launch consists of a California Cabernet Sauvignon ($21.89), Pinot Noir ($18.99), and Chardonnay ($17.99). Consumers and wine-lovers alike can purchase these wines on Fresh Vine Wine’s website. The website features the California Rose ($14.89) and Limited Reserve Napa Cabernet ($80), which are available now for pre-order. The two wines will be released this spring/summer and fall, respectively.

Dobrev and Hough are continuing the trend of celebrities entering the alcohol industry, specifically the vegan wine industry. Actress Cameron Diaz and entrepreneur Katherine Power debuted their natural vegan wine brand Avaline last year. The vegan wine is made completely from organic grapes and is available in 43 states. Actress Cara Delevigne also jumped into the vegan wine business with her two sisters, Poppy and Chloe, last year. The Delevigne sisters launched Della Vite, a prosecco brand made with completely sustainable ingredients. The increasing number of celebrities joining the vegan wine market means more vegan wine on the shelves and greater attention to the industry as a whole, giving plant-based wine-lovers as many options as they would ever need.