Within the Nation: Celebrating movie star wineries | Opinion

The variety of celebrities within the wine enterprise continues to develop. Generally the quilt of Wine Spectator appears extra like the quilt of Rolling Stone journal than a publication centered on wine. Some celebrities, I’d suspect, are dabbling, or extra appropriately, tippling into the wine world. The Felco pruners and selecting knives will not be of their device package. For others, not less than primarily based on their very own accounts, they’re much extra concerned in wine manufacturing and would possibly truly decide a grape or pull the leaves out of the bins.

The partial record of celebrities in wine contains singers John Legend, Fergie, Jon Bon Jovi, Sting, Boz Scaggs and Dave Matthews. There’s a lengthy record of others from sports activities and appearing together with Drew Barrymore, Dwyane Wade, Wayne Gretzky and Dan Marino. Simply this week basketball star James Harden introduced he plans to place his “beard on the bottle.” I’m guessing that nobody has informed any of the celebrities in regards to the economics of the wine enterprise. Or have they heard about wildfires, water rights, gophers, labor shortages or warmth spells? Do they notice there may be extra of an opportunity to earn money within the manufacture of freeway dividers or rest room bowls than in wine? Why do they enter an already crowded market? It’s no secret.

Like the remainder of us, celebrities will not be proof against the siren tune of the romance of the wine business. Vineyard possession connotes an appreciation for nature and producing one thing that makes you are feeling good. (The latter is very on-brand for Snoop Dogg.) Making wine is related to a life-style that may an improve the movie star’s model in a manner that producing semiconductors can not. It would even appear to be a enjoyable enterprise. Everybody has seen the enjoyable Lucille Ball had stomping on the grapes. She did for grape-crushing what Tom Sawyer did for fence-painting. Possibly for some, a profession in wine is seen as a worthy retirement profession or possibly it may be used for bragging rights, though I don’t see vineyard possession in the identical vein as a World Sequence ring or an Academy Award.

It’s well-known that on the subject of vineyard possession, logic is to be averted. Logic would dictate that the celebrities who’re coming into the wine enterprise might afford and revel in the most costly bottle of wine each day with out proudly owning a vineyard. A lot of folks get pleasure from wine with out proudly owning a winery or vineyard. I like ice cream however the considered shopping for a competitor to Häagen-Dazs by no means crossed my thoughts. But, right here they’re.

Celebrities have all the time been concerned within the wine enterprise. Founding Father Thomas Jefferson might have been the primary movie star wine particular person and lots of adopted. The Smothers Brothers made an enormous splash with their wine within the Nineteen Seventies. And now there may be Snoop. The U.S. now boasts over 10,000 wineries, with an increasing number of owned by celebrities. They’ve turn out to be the “influencers” who will affect who we see downtown.

I’m informed Francis Ford Coppola is in Atlanta on the point of shoot his subsequent film, which is self-financed with $120 million of his personal cash. I could possibly be corrected however I doubt he made that cash in wine.

The native “pool man” as soon as informed me that he sees extra celebrities on his weekly pool-cleaning route than he would see if he have been in Hollywood. We’re fascinated with celebrities identical to we’re fascinated with wine. I hope the mixture is an efficient one.