Real Housewives Wine: Chasing the Skinnygirl

Fans (and critics) of Bravo's Real Housewives franchise can at least agree on 1 thing: the housewives drink a lot of wine, and inspire a lot of wine drinking.

Between the 9 current franchises in the US alone (Orange County, New York City, Atlanta, New Jersey, Washington, D.C., Beverly Hills, Miami, with Potomac and Dallas releasing in 2016) the shows boast over 62 women with various business interests and branding opportunities. The most commercially successful enterprise, Skinnygirl Cocktails, was conceived by marketing expert and larger-than-life housewife Bethenny Frankel and sold for a reported $100M, with $8.1M reported just for the brand's goodwill.

The show features copious wine drinking, and cast members are aware that their fans typically drink wine while watching episodes. 6 other cast members have been inspired by Frankel's success with the fan base to sell their own branded beverages:
Ramona Pinot Grigio and Ramona Sangiovese bottled in Veneta, Italy and Toscana, Italy
Lisa Vanderpump's LVP Sangria made with Bobal, Grenache, and Tempranillo grapes from Spain
Wines by Wives wine club by Vicki Gunvalson and Tamra Judge (now closed)
Teresa Guidice's Fabellini Wines made in New York (now closed)
Unfiltered Blonde by Brandi Glanville, a Sonoma Coast Chardonnay

Each of the housewives has chosen to partner with a small professional winemaker in popular regions like Italy, Spain, or Sonoma, and focus on lending their image and considerable marketing power to promote the product.

What remains to be seen is how successful each of these wines will be with the consumer. Ramona Pinot Grigio and LVP Sangria are the standout relative successes of the pack, with varietal expansions for both within the past 2 years. At the moment, Real Housewives wines seem to be selling as mostly kitschy products for fans to drink ironically. It's not a small business opportunity, however, with around 1.8M Americans tuning in to watch an average episode of the Beverly Hills franchise, for example.