Vine Oscars: Celebrity Wines to Sip During the Show

By Natalie MacLean

On CTV’s The Social, we we chat about winemaking movie stars … can you guess who made which wine?

When I think of the Oscars, I think wine. Why? For many film industry luminaries, conspicuous consumption such as owning a yacht or even a restaurant is so 2019. These days, if you really want to show some class, you own a winery. There’s no better photo opp than one with you and your trophy wife or boy toy pruning the vines or pressing the grapes.

 

brad pitt wine

 

 

That’s why movie actors, directors and producers are getting their hands dirty, and buying  vineyards. Big names hopping on the winery bandwagon include Francis Ford Coppola, Sam Neill, Dan Ackroyd, Gérard Depardieu, Steven Seagal, Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie. Some stars are intimately involved with the winemaking process, while others just lend their names and sign the cheques.

Francis Ford Coppola 3

 

The first celebrity winemaker (if you don’t count the miracle at the wedding at Cana) was director Francis Ford Coppola. In 1975, he and his family were living in San Francisco, and he was searching for a country place to spend the weekends. That was when Coppola discovered the Inglenook winery in Rutherford, in the Napa Valley. With the proceeds from The Godfather, Part II, he bought the 1,600-acre estate for $2.5 million. He renamed the property Niebaum-Coppola, after himself and its founder, the Finnish-born sea captain Gustave Niebaum.

Coppola restored the estate to its grandeur, sparing no expense. That’s no surprise given that several of his films went wildly over their budgets—Apocalypse Now, for instance, by $30 million. The 39,000-square-foot winery features a winding staircase of carved wood from Belize, gorgeous stained-glass windows and a computerized water fountain in the courtyard.

A new winery in Sonoma houses a museum of Coppola’s film achievements, which includes his Oscar trophies, Don Corleone’s desk from The Godfather, the platoon boat from Apocalypse Now, the maroon car from Tucker and the vampire’s cape from Bram Stoker’s Dracula. The estate’s winemaking memorabilia goes back to 1879 and the gift shop features a house line of olive oils, vinegars and sun-dried tomatoes wine such as Francis Coppola Director’s Cut.

 

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Coppola’s love of wine dated back to his childhood. An Italian-American, he had always drunk wine with meals—even growing up, when it was mixed with ginger ale or lemon soda.  In 1965, when he went to Paris as a young man to write the screenplay for Is Paris Burning?, fellow writer Gore Vidal introduced him to the fine wines of Bordeaux and Burgundy. Later in life, he developed the desire to make his own wine for family and friends.

Coppola made his first wine, Rubicon, in 1978. Coppola is a devotee of Roman history and so he named the red blend after the Italian river Julius Caesar crossed in 49 B.C. to start the civil war: Rubicon. Other than this flagship brand, Coppola also produces mass-market labels called the Coppola Diamond Collection and Rosso & Bianco. His daughter, Sofia, an accomplished director in her own right who created Lost in Translation and other films, has also created her own wine, a prosecco-style sparkling white that breaks with tradition in that it’s sold in soda-sized cans (www.sofiamini.com). Coppola’s son Roman, also a director, bottles a reserve syrah made from grapes on the family property.

 

 

 

 

Over the years, Coppola has bought up neighboring vineyards, bringing his holdings to their current 235 cultivated acres, all farmed organically and producing more than 250,000 cases of wine a year. At first, Coppola’s films supported the winery; now it’s the other way around. Although he’s intimately involved in the winemaking operation, he still has a full-time winemaker and staff for the production of his wines.

 

 

Coppola has also teamed up with some friends in the movie business to make Lucas Skywalker Ranch 2wine. In 1990, at a harvest party at the estate, Coppola was chatting with fellow-director, George Lucas, whose 1973 film, American Graffiti, he had produced. Lucas mentioned that the grapes on his own property were ready to pick, but that he had no winemaking facilities. So from then on, Coppola made the wine for Lucas, who gave out the bottles as corporate gifts and poured them at his film events. In 2004, they decided to use grapes from both properties to create Lucas Skywalker Ranch chardonnay and a merlot. The wines are sold only from the winery and its web site (www.niebaum-coppola.com).

Of course, Coppola and Lucas aren’t the only directors and producers to make their own wine. New Zealand-based Michael Seresin, for instance, director of such films as Midnight Express, Fame, Angela’s Ashes and Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, makes a wonderful sauvignon blanc at his Marlborough winery. It’s crisp, herbal and loaded with delicious grapefruit aromas.

 

 

Lasseter family walking

 

John Lasseter, director of such popular computer-animated films as Toy Story, A Bug’s Life and Monsters Inc., owns fifty acres in Glen Ellen, California and produces a variety of wines under the Lasseter Family label. But until his operation gets larger, he makes his wine at the winery owned by a friend: comedian Tommy Smothers. The Smothers Brothers may have spent decades making people laugh, but their wine is no joke. In fact, the two have been making wine for more than twenty years under the Remick Ridge label.

 

Sam Neill

 

Several actors have also recast themselves as winemakers. Sam Neill, who has starred in blockbusters like Jurassic Park, Dead Calm, The Piano and The Omen, makes a top-Two Paddocks Pinot Noirnotch pinot noir at his Two Paddocks Winery—a five-acre estate in New Zealand’s rugged Central Otago area.

It’s the country’s most southerly wine region and one of its fastest growing. Whereas most of New Zealand has a maritime climate, the Central Otago is continental. Its warm, dry summers, and the differences between daytime and nighttime temperatures extend the growing season and allow a long ripening. All of Neill’s grapes are hand-picked and then fermented in whole bunches to give the wine a solid structure, but with a seductive underpinning of aromas and silky texture.

Like Coppola, Neill’s passion is generational. His parents moved from Northern Ireland to New Zealand when he only three years old. His father ran a wine importing business and made a popular brandy called Beehive. Neill attributes its success to its simple and easy-to-pronounce name—something he kept in mind when naming his own winery.

 

 

Fess Parker

 

 

 

Fess Parker Rodney's Vineyard Syrah 2007 2

 

Actor Fess Parker was best known in the 1950s for playing frontiersmen such as Davy Crockett and Daniel Boone. Unlike the characters he played, Parker had a passion for wine. In 1987, he bought a 714-acre ranch, north of Santa Barbara, in the Santa Ynez Valley. It was a beautiful spot: flanked by vineyards on both sides and with towering mountains in the background. (Perhaps that’s why the winery was featured in the movie Sideways.)

More to the point, the soil was excellent and the winery expanded rapidly. As his daughter Ashley, now executive vice president, observed, her Texan-born father “couldn’t do anything small.”  Today, his son Eli is president of Fess Parker Winery, which produces chardonnay, pinot noir, syrah and viognier.

 

 

gerard-depardieu

 

 

Of course, the French have a longer history when it comes to making wine. Gérard Depardieu, the colossus of French cinema who made his name in movies such as Cyrano de Bergerac, Jean de Florette and Green Card, is one of the most passionate winemakers on the international scene. In fact, his passport gives his occupation as “acteur-vigneron.”

He bought his first property, Château de Tigné in France’s Loire Valley, in 1982. Today, Depardieu owns more than twenty vineyards in France, Italy, Spain, America, Morocco and Algeria. Such breadth of ownership isn’t surprising for a man of famously enormous appetites. When he visits a friend’s house for dinner, Depardieu has been known to take an entire case of wine along. He’s now published his own cookbook, Ma Cuisine, full of meaty recipes and he owns a restaurant in Paris, La Fontaine Gaillon.

He’s serious about making good wine: not only is he involved in its production, but he has also hired the superstar Bordeaux wine consultant Michel Rolland. In 2004, he partnered with the multi-millionaire Bernard Magrez, who owns both Château Pape-Clément in Bordeaux and the giant spirits company William Pitters.

The two men bought the two-hectare vineyard of Château Gadet in the northern Haut-Médoc village of St-Seurin-de-Cadourne. Depardieu’s status as an iconic Frenchman gives him entrée into places that are off-limits to other winemakers. He was able to buy land in the Languedoc region of southern France, even though the area’s vintners bitterly opposed any attempts by foreign conglomerates to do so. (The late California wine giant Robert Mondavi, for one, got the brush off from the townspeople. But locals felt that Depardieu was one of them. The whole affaire Languedoc, with its bitter protests, is captured in the excellent documentary Mondovino.)

 

 

Seaton McLean hc

 

Here in Canada, we have several actor-winemakers on our own doorstep. Television producer and filmmaker, Seaton McLean, the founder of Alliance Atlantis Closson_Chard-2005Communications—and his actress wife Sonja Smits, of Street Legal fame—are two of the five owners of Closson Chase Vineyards in Prince Edward County. One of Canada’s newest wine regions, the County (located on Ontario’s scenic Bay of Quinte, near Belleville) has soils that are similar to those in Burgundy, France. The area is booming: there are now more than 35 wineries there.

In 1998, MacLean, Smits and partners bought the Closson Chase land and uprooted 17 of the 50 acres of existing corn fields to plant French-imported vines. They hired one of Canada’s most talented winemakers, Deborah Paskus. The project got off on a rocky start.

In 2002, the first acre was just two weeks away from harvest when swallows ate all the grapes and in 2003, raccoons did the job with just five days to go before picking. The 2005 was the first vintage made entirely from their own grapes: 20 percent pinot noir and 80 percent chardonnay. They hope to build up to 4,000 cases a year—a small but respectable production.

 

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Dan Aykroyd Cabernet Sauvignon Shiraz 2011

 

Another Canadian actor, comedian Dan Aykroyd, invested $1 million in Niagara Cellars. Located in Canada’s most established wine region, the company includes four established wineries: Thomas & Vaughan, East Dell Estates, Lakeview Estates and Birchwood Estates and created his own label, Dan Aykroyd Cellars.

The Ottawa native famous for his roles in The Blues Brothers, Ghost Busters and Saturday Night Live, got the idea from Francis Ford Coppola when he visited the latter’s winery. Ackroyd plans to use his high profile to promote Canadian wines in the U.S. He also plans to sell the wines through his ten House of Blues restaurants across America.

 

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More recently, Brad Pitt and Angelina have launched their own rose from Provence called Miraval Rosé. It’s a seriously great wine made by the respected Rhone house of Perrin. Director James Cameron, of Avatar-fame, has also just purchased the BC Winery, Beaufort.

 

 

 

 

With so many movie celebrities getting their hands sticky, it’s hard to know what we may see next on offer from the Dallas Buyers Wine Club: Chardonnay for Her? DiCaprio Cabernet Unreserved? Captain Phillips Cabernet Franc? Gravity: 12 Years Oak Aged?

 

 

Posted with permission of CTV.

 

 

Meanwhile, we also chatted about Oscar-worthy wines on Facebook Live Video Wine Tasting to drink while watching this year’s Academy Awards.

You can click on the arrow above to play the video.

We were joined by guest winemaker, Helen Morrison of Villa Maria to help us get ready for the big show.

You’ll find our most recent live video wine tasting here:

www.nataliemaclean.com/live

We taste every Sunday evening at 6 pm eastern so add us to your calendar and grab a glass of wine.

Click on the buttons for “Share” and “Like” on the page above to get notified when we go live.

If you’d like to read 104 comments for this tasting, or make a comment yourself, visit:

https://www.facebook.com/natdecants/videos/10154411500734845/

Here’s a sampling of lively discussion from our tasting …

Helen Morrison · 37:41 Pinot Noir is our second largest planted variety in New Zealand (after Sauvignon Blanc).
Helen Morrison · 0:00 Ka kite ano (Maori language for see you later)
Louise Desmarais · 38:05 Yes from Santorini. And pair with arrival.
Louise Desmarais · 38:33 Lyrarakis is the producer.

Helen Morrison · 5:12 Midday here, so am skipping lunch

 

 

Helen Morrison · 35:55 Loving the hot tub idea
 Helen Morrison · 14:37 Yes Lala land surely is best match
Helen Morrison · 10:51 Fun interpretation of Sauvignon Blanc
Helen Morrison · 4:51 Yes hello in Maori
Lise Charest Gagne · 18:10 BAD
 Helen Morrison · 3:54 Kia ora from New Zealand
Villa Maria Winery, Marlborough
Tom Dean · 19:21 Way to go Helen… wine and racing is a time-honored tradition…. especially at the end of the Formula 1 races!!
Lise Charest Gagne · 12:49 are you growing produce in between the rows i see small plantings in the last photo
Lise Charest Gagne · 9:58 i like the ouverture magnum for red- low stem for clumsy hubby
Lise Charest Gagne · 16:06 Lovely Helen thats very important to me when i shop for wine
Villa Maria Estate Cellar Selection Sauvignon Blanc
Marlborough, South Island, New Zealand
Lise Charest Gagne · 34:42 I love drinking bubbles up north here (-30C) with the bottle in the snowbank and enjoying my hottub
Lise Charest Gagne · 29:32 Helen how many hours a day do you work during this harvest time curious
Nicole Tracey Lewis · 19:21 I highly recommend the Okanagan Valley’s Blue Mountain brut.
Stephen Andrews · 39:10 Pair some Maui Brut with La la land because it is very different.
Rod Hallam · 29:28 Villa Chardonnay will be released in LCBO Vintages later this year
Villa Maria Winery, Marlborough
Stephen Andrews · 46:10 Re Maui Brut it is a great sparkler made in Maui by Tedeschi wines $20
 Helen Morrison · 46:42 Brut refers to the wine sweetness level, brut means dry, which is less than 8gL residual sugar
 Stephen Andrews · 33:38 Regarding Oscars, the NFB has its entry as Blind Vaysha animated 74th nomination need a wine that looks back and forward at the same time. What would work.
Helen Morrison · 44:51 Yes cool nights over summer is what defines us as cool climate, but also cool temperatures as we go into autumn (fall) when our grapes are harvested (so natural acidity is retained)
 Helen Morrison · 27:47 Our Sauvignon Blanc harvest will be later, end of March, its been a windy summer, cooler temperatures so will need to be patient waiting for flavours to come…
 Helen Morrison · 28:45 Any winemaker will tell you its our favorite time of year, yes its busy, but its our one chance to craft grapes into wine for the year (in contrast to beer brewing that can happen at any time of year)
Helen Morrison · 8:13 Yes aromatics are better in tulip, I agree. But yes bubbles last longer in flute. A good quality bubbles should taste good in any glass
Helen Morrison · 15:35 Our winery Villa Maria is family owned so a focus on the environment is key, 100% sustainable farmed, but aiming for 50% our our grapes to be grown organically by 2020 (hence the cover crops in the middle of the rows)
 Tom Dean · 35:41 Yes, I have the Red Carpet event on the TV (muted of course), and they all seem to have some anxieties….
Tom Dean · 33:41 They should be handing out RUFFINO at the Red Carpet (OSCARS) tonight… it would relax some of the actors…
Stephen Andrews · 23:58 Yes the villa Maria sparkling looks like great value. I will be trying it.
Aimery Grand Cuvée 1531 Crémant De Limoux
Limoux, Southwest AC, France

Villa Maria Winery, Marlborough

Stephen Andrews · 21:27 Ok I would love to have a piper-heidsieck to sip while watching the Oscar’s .
Nicholas Onischuk · 32:26 Helen, what’s the one thing you love the most about your job?
Stephen Andrews · 13:58 Hello Helen the Pinot is lovely enjoying with a piece of oka cheese
Helen Morrison · 31:27 I’d spent about 5-6 hours every day out on the road with our Marlborough viticulturist tasting grapes to decide when they are ready to harvest, then back to the winery to check on ferments and fruit intake, so a good day that is going to plan is around 12 hours
Oenologize · 44:24 Ca Del Bosco is a Franciacorta! Italy’s answer to Champagne, using Traditional Method, Chardonnay and Pinot Noir, and even the chalky soils!
 Helen Morrison · 40:06 All French oak but low percentage of new oak 0-15% as we want the fruit to be the most prominent feature, oak just to sit in the background supporting the fruit
Ruffino Prosecco
Tuscany, Italy
Helen Morrison · 35:14 And the passionate people meet in the industry, can never know everything about every wine region, so always learning
 Helen Morrison · 33:59 Vintage is best time of year, but sharing wine with people all over the world is best part of the job
Helen Morrison · 26:50 On the countdown to harvest, yes we make a traditional methode, so hand pick Pinot Noir will be week of 6 March
Helen Morrison · 25:56 I’ve heard Hidden Figures is captivating, probably more of a Pinot Noir movie though

 

 

Villa Maria Winery, Hawkes Bay

 

Helen Morrison · 18:24 Never been to Daytona, but did Private Bin Sauvignon Blanc tasting in Indianapolis once (and got to ride in indie 500 car)
Helen Morrison · 16:55 Pinot Noir is grown in Marlborough also, but in different soil types, Pinot Noir needs deep soils, clay, silts, whereas Sauvignon will grown on river gravels
Helen Morrison · 13:18 Fresh acidity would go with creamy cheeses best, goat cheese works well
Helen Morrison · 12:45 Yes florals, citrus, lime, lemons aromas, then on the palate tropical fruits finishing with crisp herbs, thyme, sage
Helen Morrison · 11:41 Blend of Sauvignon Blanc from all over New Zealand, Martinborough, Nelson, Marlborough, Waipara
Helen Morrison · 10:30 Lightly sparkling, so yes carbonation to add the bubbles, to help lift the aromatics
Sam Hauck · 39:54 How about Hidden Figures with a thinking persons wine – Port of Pinot Noir.
Perseus Winery Sparkling Chardonnay
Okanagan Valley, British Columbia BC V.Q.A. Canada
Lise Charest Gagne · 45:41 Brut is a term for traditional vs charmat correct?
 Carrie Mac Donald · 34:03 I love sipping sparkling while I prepare meals…LOL!
 Gwen Barton · 15:07 I bet it would go great with popcorn (movie theme snack)!

Villa Maria Winery, Marlborough

Tom Dean · 12:13 any cheeses recommended for these wines?
Nicole Tracey Lewis · 25:50 Is the Perseus available at the LCBO?
Stephen Andrews · 35:55 Helen how many bottles of the Pinot do you produce in a year?

Lise Charest Gagne · 38:02 Helen what type of oak do you use with the Pinot Noir

Lise Charest Gagne · 25:53 do you have the chardonnay from villa maria
Stephen Andrews · 47:08 Good show love you Pinot noir! Helen
Stephen Andrews · 9:24 Drinking Villa Maria Pinot Noir, yes
Stephen Andrews · 16:14 Yes it has a cream texture
Oenologize · 47:13 Thank you Natalie! And Helen as well!
Sunday February 26th at​ ​6​​​ pm eastern ​(Toronto ​time):

Live Video Tasting of Oscar-Worthy Wines

 

​We tasted Oscar-worthy wines to drink while watching this year’s Academy Awards.

We were joined by special guest Villa Maria’s Senior Winemaker, Helen Morrison from New Zealand as we taste her Sauvignon Blanc Sparkling Wine and other alternatives to Champagne.

Helen’s passion for wine encouraged her decision to change her career path, completing her Bachelor of Viticulture and Oenology, as top female student, at Lincoln University, Christchurch in 2005.

Helen joined Villa Maria’s Marlborough team in January 2014 and is excited to be working for such an iconic, well awarded, winemaking family that is focused on sustainability and environmental responsibility to ensure our future.

Helen has lived in Marlborough since 2006, working previously as a client winemaker in a large custom crush Sauvignon Blanc and Pinot Noir facility, and before this, for a smaller family estate specialising in Riesling.

Helen has been involved in wine judging in the New Zealand wine show system since 2008, progressing from associate to senior judge in 2012.  Helen has also been on the Marlborough wine options committee for several years now, and also hosts regular wine club tastings. She has great enthusiasm for the wine industry, there’s so much to learn and so many great people associated within it.

Helen also loves the outdoors, enjoying skiing in the winter, camping, tramping and boating in the summer, as well as trying to keep fit running the dog, swimming and mountain biking.

 

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