By Matthew DeBord
HQ 57 | WINTER/SPRING 2006
What is it about fine wines and celebrities that make the pairing two great tastes that go great together? Most casual observers would think: Ha! Any wine created or endorsed by a celebrity is going to be awful. But the fact is, the complete opposite is the case. Most celebrity wines aren’t just OK, they’re excellent.
It’s nothing new for people with huge amounts of disposable income to enter the wine game. It’s been said that the best way to make a small fortune in the wine business is to start with a large one, and that adage continues to hold true. But in the past, the folks who were attracted to the risky business of winemaking were people who had already succeeded in another area of life, usually something like mega-finance, real estate or technology startups. They were household names, but only if the household was in the highest tax bracket.
These days, a new personality has entered the game: the legitimate celebrity. Often, the names come from the world of sports, usually golf. But there are now wines identified with actors and musicians, as well. It’s a proliferating category, and it all makes sense, if you think about it: What better way to sell wine that to obtain not simply a celebrity endorsement, but to arrange for the wine to be actually produced by the celeb. Genius!
Obviously, these wines could easily be terrible. What’s remarkable is that they’re not. Two professional golfers have both introduced wines, under their own labels, in the past decade that are quite stupendous. Greg Norman, a worldwide Australian star in the 1980s and ’90s, produces almost a dozen wines under his Greg Norman Estates label, in both Australia and California. All have rated very highly with wine critics, and one — the McLaren Vale Reserve Shiraz — is a solid challenger to similar wines from Europe. This is not an everyday bottling, however. Easier to find is the entry level Chardonnay, which, for the price (around $14), is hard to beat in terms of quality. It’s a delicious bundle of butter and fruit, and it goes perfectly with grilled salmon or shrimp.
Norman’s fellow pro linkster, Ernie Els — who has two U.S. Opens and British Open under his belt — has arguably done even better. The South African got into wine about five years ago, and has already succeeded in producing what many regard as his country’s best red. It’s a Bordeaux-style blend, meaning that it’s made up of Cabernet, Merlot and several other grapes, depending on the vintage. Ernie isn’t giving this one away — it goes for upwards of $90 — but it’s worth sampling if you get the chance.
Golfer David Frost also produces wine. His trick is that he commissions special labels from sports artist Leroy Neiman. So far, Frost has commemorated the likes of Sam Snead, Arnold Palmer and Jack Nicklaus. His wines are moderately priced, too.
Not so moderately priced is football legend Joe Montana’s foray into the realm of the vine. A serious bottle of serious California Cabernet, his Montagia Howell Mountain, retails for $80. I haven’t tried it yet, but I do know that Montana got one of California’s top winemakers, Ed Sbragia (Beringer’s winemaker), to help him out. Chances are, if Joe listened to Ed, this wine is worth a try.
For whatever reason, sports stardom and winemaking aspirations tend to mingle. Not so cozy are winemaking and rock music. After all, what are the odds that you’re going to see a Mick Jagger cuvee anytime soon? More likely a special bottling of Jack Daniels. Still, rockers dig their wines, as one of the wine world’s most popular magazines, Food + Wine, recently reported. Vince Neil, of Mötley Crüe fame, produces wines under his Vince Vineyards label. The result has a bit more pedigree than what you might think: It’s a genuine Napa Cabernet, in the midrange as far as price goes ($23). Carlos Santana has even lent his name to a California sparkling wine, created by the famous Champagne house Mumm.
When you get right down to it, Greg Norman can take a lot of credit for the rather delightful state of celebrity wines. When he entered the business, he partnered with a big drinks conglomerate and basically insisted that they ensure nothing would go out under his name that wasn’t of good quality. The man already had a good business sense, but in this case, business and marketing were combined. The result is a lineup up of wines that sell briskly and taste good, from the inexpensive everyday bottlings right up to the highly rated collectible reds. I know for a fact that Norman’s Cabernet Merlot blend is a favorite of Huntington Quarterly Publisher Jack Houvouras.
In short, although you might be buying a Norman or an Els or a Montana or even a Santana wine because you recognize the celebrity’s name on the label, you can almost be guaranteed that you won’t end up with swill. Such is celebrity culture these days: the celebs tend their reputations as fastidiously as winemakers tend their vines.
So what’s next? Well, it’s not inconceivable that, at some point down the road, Tiger Woods might start making wine (although whether he’d actually drink it is another questions entirely). Undoubtedly, it would be a powerful California red with a finish that never quits.
Now, no article about celebrity wines would be complete without mentioning the biggest of them all, the Mack Daddy of celeb wines, those of filmmaker Francis Ford Coppola. As you may or may not know, back when Coppola was scruffy and idealistic in the 1970s, he blew off Hollywood and moved his moviemaking operation to San Francisco. He bought a property in nearby Napa — the old Niebaum estate, which had belonged to lngelnook — and, smack in the middle of the American wine boom, began to produce wine. Thirty years later, his top wine, Rubicon, holds its own with the best Napa has to offer. It’s an elegant red that can be picked up for $100. Yes, that’s a lot of moolah, but Rubicon is superb. And, unlike some of the newer celebrity wines, it has shown that it can age. A lot like Coppola’s films. Call it the Godfather of celebrity wines.
