Take a peek at the shelves of your average wine store, and I bet you a shiny nickel that you’ll find at least one bottle of “celebrity” wine. From PGA golfers and NASCAR drivers to Hollywood actors and rock stars, everyone’s got a wine to call their own. It seems wine has joined the perfume industry as just another stop on the road of fame.
However, I’m suspicious of any company that uses something as meaningless as a celebrity endorsement to sell its products. In theory, a good product shouldn’t need the crutch of a big name. I recently taste-tested a variety of tinseltown wines; perhaps not surprisingly their quality corresponded to the celebrity’s level of involvement in the winemaking process.
Tribute Bottles and Quick Cash
In Canada, Dan Aykroyd, Wayne Gretzky, and Mike Weir have all recently launched wines under their names, while Jason Priestley belongs to Vinequest Wine Partners, a Calgary-based investment group that just bought Canada’s famous Black Hills winery. While these celebs are often described as “winemakers,” they are anything but—most of them have little or no participation in the actual wine production. Aykroyd’s wines are made by Lakeview Cellars; the former Saturday Night Live cast member is merely an investor and spokesman. Similarly, Mike Weir and Wayne Gretzky’s wines are both produced by Ontario’s Creekside Estate Winery.
An offshoot of the celebrity wine trend are tribute bottles, which pay homage to a famous person but are not usually affiliated with them in any way beyond the use of their name/image. Celebrity Cellars, for instance, is an American company that bottles wines saluting The Rolling Stones, Kiss, Madonna, Céline Dion, and Barbra Streisand. Similarly, Marilyn Monroe Cellars has wines in honour of the iconic poster girl (Marilyn Merlot, anyone?), while Graceland Cellars makes Elvis Presley wine.
From Hollywood Hill to
Vineyard Dirt
On the opposite end of the spectrum are celebrities who actually participate in making the wine that bears their name. Fess Parker (who played Davy Crockett on the 1950s television show) and Francis Ford Coppola both own and operate family wineries. While naming the winery after themselves obviously calls attention to their stardom, their labels and websites focus less on the name and more on the actual product. Some celebrities even pick unrelated names for their winery: take Maynard James Keenan, lead singer of Tool and A Perfect Circle, whose Arizona winery is named Caduceus.
Curtis Bawden of Pacific Wines & Spirits, the importing agency that handles Coppola and Parker’s wines, argues that when assessing the quality of a celebrity wine, you have to ask “what the story behind the wine really is.” In 1975, Coppola rescued the historic Inglenook winery, which dates back to the 1880s, from near-oblivion. While the winery was of a much larger scale than Coppola originally intended (he was looking for a summer home in the area and was planning simply to make a little wine in his basement), he took the plunge and has since made a very successful line of wines. The director’s first-hand involvement in the business speaks volumes about his credibility. As Curtis states, “Coppola is involved with everything. All the decision-making is in his hands. He is not out to make a quick buck.”
Show Time
Even celebrities are innocent until proven guilty (until O.J. Simpson opens a winery, anyway), so I decided to test-drive some celebrity wines. On the table were the 2005 Fess Parker Viognier ($29), the 2006 Dan Aykroyd Chardonnay ($18), the 2005 Marilyn Merlot ($38), the 2005 Francis Ford Coppola Rosso ($20), the 2005 Mario Andretti Zinfandel ($36), and the 2005 Elvis Presley Stuck on You Shiraz ($21).
The results were mostly discouraging, though the Fess Parker Viognier and Marilyn Merlot were quite good; the Viognier had intense fruit concentration and a delicious nose of dried apricots, honey, and a hint of mint, while the Merlot had a spicy, meaty palate and would make a great pizza wine. Alternately, you could leave the bottle unopened and use it to pad your retirement fund: according to the website, Marilyn wines quickly appreciate in value, with 12-bottle sets of the 1985 through 1996 vintages currently selling for $8,000.
The Coppola Rosso was okay: it was juicy and smooth and even though it was earthy to the point of tasting like dirt, it was quaffable. The rest were crap. The Dan Aykroyd Chard smelled like a mixture of laundry detergent and air freshener and left a soapy coating in my mouth; you’d be better off spraying it on the curtains rather than pouring it into a glass on your table. Similarly, the Andretti Zin was bitter, unpleasant, and smelled like dog excrement. The Elvis Shiraz was inoffensive, but not very interesting either. Look elsewhere for your hunk of burning love.
Ultimately, this tasting indicates that celebrity wines tend to be overpriced and underwhelming. While there are some celebrities (or wineries paying tribute to celebrities) who clearly put effort into their product, most use their bottles as another marquee for the big name. Unless you’re a diehard fan, my advice is to ignore the flashy names and search for the real stars of the wine world.
