Here is a list of musicians that you would typically expect to find in the music charts, but who you will actually discover on the labels of some wine bottles
When we imagine a wine lover, we imagine them with a drink in hand, dressed impeccably – not wearing worn-out jeans and a patterned t-shirt. Perhaps we would conjure up an image of a Hollywood star picking grapes, or the leader of a rock band sampling drinks? Well, what is certain is that there is a large number of well-known musicians behind their own wine business, whether as a passion, whether as investment, or both at once. Some of them have always had a soft spot for viticulture, whilst others have been discovering it over the years, and there are even those who have simply decided to assign their name in order to achieve profitability in the sector. Either way, here are some of the names that you did not expect to find on a wine bottle label, but now you might be tempted to try a glass.
Wine rocks you
One of the most famous wine growers is Sting, leader of music band The Police, who has combined his two dedications. The singer has a country estate extending 300 hectares in the south of Florence (Italy), known as Il Palagio, where high quality varieties of grape are produced, as well as honey and olive oil. His crops are organic, since he has always focused his work on being a “commitment for biodiversity”. He loves the wines so much that they are named after his songs, such as Sister Moon (one of the one-hundred best wines in the Apennine peninsula, according to the specialised magazine Wine Spectator), When We Dance, Message in a Bottle, and Roxanne.
But you do not have to own a Tuscan winery to start up a wine business, and this is shown by Ariel Rot. The Argentinean rocker dedicated months to travelling around Spain, testing out wines, or so is told, until he had a variety to which he wanted to sign over his name. The business chosen was the winery Los Pinos, with headquarters in Fontanars dels Alforins and assigned to the Designation of Origin Valencia. Rot’s wine is called La Huesuda 2013, and is an eco-friendly red wine with grapes from Monastrell, Syrah and Garnacha, and is presented under the motto “one-hundred percent rock and roll”. He is not the only musician that has marked out his name to wine: Bob Dylan, recently awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature, is the face of Planet Wave; whilst U2 created The Joshua Tree Riesling and AC/DC, Black in Black.
Squandering on champagne
That image of celebration in which a rapper appears publicly in luxury commodities always includes champagne, either in a bathtub or even thrown over the toilet. Until 2006, Jay Z was travelling by limousine with the brand Cristal, but that was all before the incident with Louis Roederer allegedly making racist statements. Therefore, the musician decided to throw all of his support into the brand Armand de Brignac, more commonly known as Ace of Spades, and he ended up promoting it in his music video Show me what you got. His interest in the sector of sparkling wines grew so much that he ended up buying the French company. The most well-known product in his business is Gold Brut, an exclusive champagne, manufactured solely with Pinot grapes, and which is only bottled as limited edition, reaching the price of 680 euros per unit.
But it is not only men who have got involved in the wine business, just ask Madonna, the woman who has accomplished everything. A decade ago, the ‘queen of pop’ launched a limited edition in collaboration with the Californian business Celebrity Cellars, who printed photographs of her album Confessions on a dance floor on the bottle. Her case is special because, although the singer is not aware of all the nooks and crannies of the wine world, her father Silvio ‘Tony’ Ciccone is the producer of this wine in Michigan, therefore she has always made generous contributions to its perpetuity. Following in her footsteps is Lady Gaga, who has already expressed her intention to enter her own brand onto the market, which she promises to call Grigio Girls. She has a strong preference for white wines.
Santana and Serrat
In terms of the Spanish-speaking world, the musician Carlos Santana has also offered his name to a wine business, however, Santana has done it for a beneficial cause. With a mix of Pinot Noir, Chardonnay, Pinot Meunier and Pinot Gris, the wine ‘Santana Savor’ is made in a traditional way with grapes from fifty selected vineyards in Napa Valley (California). The full amount raised from the sale of this wine is assigned to the Milagro Foundation in support of underprivileged children. In Spain, there is the wine lover exponent, Joan Manuel Serrat, whose passion led to acquiring his own business at the end of the nineties, called Mas Perinet. The company was settled over more than six-hundred hectares of land in the region of Priorat and included three wineries altogether. In 2014 he decided to sell it to some North-American investors in order to build a luxury resort for wine tourism, in a millionaire transaction, to which the exact amount is unknown.