By Jeff Hoyt
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Bombshell
in a bottle |
With
celebrities selling everything from alpha hydroxy
cream to Omega watches, it’s no wonder they’re
also being used to peddle wine. But while some actors
and singers are happy to lend their name and their
fame to wineries just to get a paycheck, others are
buying up vineyards and critiquing barrel samples.
There are some superstars who don’t have a choice
whether to participate in the winemaking process,
because instead of picking grapes, they’re pushing
daisies.
Marilyn
Merlot sounds like a punch line to a joke, but if
you owned a bottle of the ’85 output, you’d
be laughing all the way to the bank. You could hawk
that particular collector’s item for about $3,000.
The blonde bombshell’s estate has lent her name
to Marilyn Wines, which produces Marilyn Merlot, Marilyn
Cabernet, Norma Jeane (Monroe’s birth name)
and the Velvet Collection, which features a “peel
and peek” label of her nude portrait with her
most private areas covered by a removable plastic
overlay.
You
can toast to Marilyn posing on velvet, and to Elvis
being painted on it with Velvet Elvis Cabernet Sauvignon
from Graceland Cellars, which produces The King Cabernet
Sauvignon, Jailhouse Red and Blue Suede Chardonnay.
Clos du Bois in Sonoma County has partnered with the
late Grateful Dead guitarist Jerry Garcia’s
estate to produce J. Garcia Chardonnay and J. Garcia
Merlot. The rest of us are grateful that the label
consists of Jerry’s own artwork as opposed to
a nude portrait.
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Celebrity
Cellars bottle rock 'n' roll |
You
don’t have to be a dead musician to have your
name on a bottle (although the jury is still out on
the Elvis Presley wines). Despite a bad boy rocker
image and DUI conviction, Mötley Crüe’s
lead singer Vince Neil sells a very civilized Vince
Vineyards 2003 Napa Cabernet Sauvignon as well as
a 2003 Vince Vineyards Sonoma County Chardonnay. California-based
Celebrity Cellars bottles wine with labels licensed
from Kiss, Rolling Stones and Madonna. Although the
artists differ musically, the same wines are sold
in different performers' bottles. When Madonna's father
Silvio, who runs Ciccone Vineyard and Winery in Suttons
Bay, Mich, critiques his daughter's wines, she probably
says, "Papa, don't preach!"
Some
singers prefer to see their names on marquees rather
than wine labels. Mick Hucknall, lead singer of Simply
Red, kept his name off of his Etna Rosso DOC, a blend
between Nerello Mascalese and Nerello Cappuccio, but
named his Sicilian winery Il Cantante (The Singer).
Similarly, British pop star Sir Cliff Richard named
his Portuguese label Adega do Cantor (The Cellar of
the Singer). Bob Dylan, who sang “Businessmen,
they drink my wine” in “All Along the
Watchtower,” has an Italian wine named after
his album, Fattoria Le Terrazze 2002 Planet Waves.
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Simply
Red's Mick Hucknall and partner, oenologist Salvo
Foti |
Actors
aren’t immune to naming wine after themselves.
Before Fess Parker opened one of the most-visited
wineries in Los Olivos, Calif., he was playing Davy
Crockett on television. Raymond Burr Vineyards in
Dry Creek Valley, California has survived the death
of the actor who portrayed Perry Mason. French actor
Gerard Depardieu owns the Chateau de Tigne vineyards
in the Anjou region of France, as well as vineyards
in Sicily and a winery in Hungary. His name graces
Ma Vérité de Gerard Depardieu Early
Maturity.
Tommy
and Dick Smothers actually took their name off their
Sonoma County winery. “Originally the winery
was called Smothers Brothers, but I changed the name
to Remick Ridge Vineyards because when people heard
Smothers Brothers wine, they thought something like
Milton Berle Fine Wine or Larry, Curly and Mo Vineyards,”
he explains. Perhaps the most famous name removal
involves director Francis Ford Coppola, who purchased
the Inglenook winery in Napa Valley in 1975 and renamed
it Niebaum-Coppola. He named a sparkling wine after
his “Lost in Translation” directing daughter—Sofia
Blanc de Blanc—and used his son’s initials
in naming his RC Estate Reserve Syrah. After achieving
considerable success in this difficult field, Coppola
recently christened the winery again, dubbing it Rubicon
Estate after one of his top releases. If you think
giving up the name Coppola is a bad idea, it didn’t
seem to hurt Francis Ford’s nephew Nicholas,
who decided to go by the name of Cage instead. |