Sunday, March 06, 2005

Celebrity wineries.

Interesting piece over on Slate, regarding celebrity wineries: Wineries that bear the names of celebrities, and which presumably were purchased with some of the funds they’ve been paid over the years, either because they’re truly interested in owning wineries or as a diversification of assets, or even as a tax write-off.

The article lists Coppola-Niebaum as being the "dean" of celebrity wineries, with Francis Ford Coppola using his Godfather movies’ income to purchase the Niebaum winery. I’d guess there are some earlier ones, with TV entertainers leading the way. (The Smothers Brothers, Pat Paulsen, and Fess Parker among them.) It also lists some golfers' wineries (Ernie Els and Greg Norman) and a couple of others.

I guess the article doesn’t claim to be a comprehensive listing of even golf-related celebrity wineries, as it’s also missing Arnold Palmer. And then there are the celebrity-related, but not -named, wineries that didn’t make the list, such as Blenheim (owned by Dave Matthews) and RH Cohn (owned by the only business manager that the Doobie Brothers have had).

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