From Coppola to Cliff Richard – six celebrity winery owners

There’s nothing so satisfying as sitting in the shade of your own vines with a glass of your own wine in your hand, a philosopher once said… these six celebrities would agree

What do Francis Ford Coppola, Brad Pitt and the President of the United States have in common? Answer: they all own wineries. The old joke goes that the surest way to make a small fortune in wine is to start with a large one, and any wine veteran will tell you it’s true. Owning a winery is as compelling as owning a basketball team or a newspaper – it’s a wonderful way of showing how rich you are. But there are other reasons: some celebrities, like the New Zealand actor Sam Neill and his Two Paddocks winery, have found an entire new career in wine; others genuinely love wine and make sure they hire the world’s best winemakers to get the most out of their land. Others do it for tax reasons, but we’re not concerned with them. The following celebrity owners all have different approaches to their estates.

Francis Ford Coppola

The Godfather director bought of one THE great old estates of Napa with the profits from his legendary Mafia three-parter. Inglenook was founded by Finnish sea captain and fur trader Gustave Niebaum in the late 19th century in the Napa appellation of Rutherford. By 1890 it was winning international accolades, but like most American wineries it was decimated by Prohibition. By the 1970s quality had fallen so far that Inglenook was synonymous with cheap jug wine, before Coppola came along and turned things round. Now the name Inglenook is on the labels again, Coppola having bought back the trademark in 2011, the final step in his revival of the great old winery. The portly director and family are popular in Napa – not least because they pulled down a barn-like building on the main road that locals hated because it spoiled the views of the estate. The wines are accomplished, though critics have wondered if the winemaking team is coaxing enough elegance out of land that is considered among the finest terroir in the world. Coppola also owns an enormous winery in the neighbouring county of Sonoma, which he runs like a theme park and has filled with his movies’ memorabilia – Don Corleone’s desk and Tucker’s car for example (the Apocalypse Now patrol boat is perched on top of a hill at Inglenook).

Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie

When the then gilded couple bought a Provencal estate in 2012 the wine world smothered a yawn, assuming there would be the usual razzmatazz over the wine but that Pitt and Jolie would have little to do with it. Then the Hollywood star hired Marc Perrin of the great chateau Beaucastel to advise on his wine – which he called Chateau Miraval, and people started to take more notice. Perrin says Pitt is involved in every stage of the process from vineyard to bottle. The wine is much admired, a fresh, zesty rosé with a bright acidic core, widely available for less that the price of a cinema ticket. Very easy to like, and widely available both in the UK and the US.

Brad Pitt and Angelina JoliePAN Photo Agency / shutterstock

Donald Trump

The irrepressible US president has many interests, and one of these is the estate in Virginia which he bought in 2011. The 1,300 (500ha) acre Trump Winery is in the very cradle of American winemaking, lying a few miles from Monticello, the winery owned by Thomas Jefferson. Trump’s son Eric (a popular boss, by all accounts) is in charge; the wines – Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot and Cabernet Franc, and some whites – are “competently crafted, with a California rather than a European cast,” UK wine critic Andrew Jefford says – by which he means they’re sweeter and more fruit-forward than your typical European Cabernet. So far so good, although as we know, anything connected with the Trump family comes with an added measure of chaos and controversy. In this case, unhelpful journalists pointed out that the estate relies on immigrant labour from Mexico. Not those same immigrants, one presumes, that the President had described as drug dealers and “rapists” in a campaign speech.

Donald TrumpEvan El-Amin / shutterstock

Stan Kroenke

Buying a winery is like buying a newspaper. It’s going to cost you an arm and a leg, you’re unlikely to make any money from it, but it’s a good deal of fun. Kroenke, the moustachioed entrepreneur who looks like a 1970s TV detective, has a portfolio that includes Arsenal Football Club, the St Louis Rams NFL franchise, Colorado Rapids Major League Soccer team, the Colorado Avalanche NHL team, and basketball team the Denver Nuggets. The cherry on this multi-layered gateau is one of the world’s most expensive wines, Napa’s Screaming Eagle, which sells for north of £3000 ($3,800) a bottle (yes, you read that right) in fine vintages like the 1997. It’s a jewel of a place in the Napa appellation of Oakville, a secluded Eden that founder Jean Phillips described as “my precious little winery”. And now Kroenke’s got a taste for the grape. This year he bought a famed Burgundy estate, Bonneau de Martray, for an undisclosed price, but one which would almost certainly have left him little change from €100m ($111.5m)

Gerard Depardieu

The barrel-chested French actor, whose eccentricity has become notorious – viz his outspoken admiration for Russian president Vladimir Putin – has been involved in wine for many years, along with Bordeaux kingpin Bernard Magrez, who owns Chateau Pape Clement and other fine properties. Depardieu knows a bit about wine – he once boasted of drinking 14 bottles of alcohol a day – but it’s unclear how much time he spends in the vineyard. Whatever he does, though, it’s obviously working for some of his wines at least. His Ma Verite 2005, a mid-level Bordeaux (hard to find except at Magrez’s wine shops) was compared by America’s foremost critic Robert Parker to some of the most exalted of its Medoc neighbours. “Sensational”, Parker noted.

Gerard Depardieutaniavolobueva / shutterstock

Cliff Richard

The iconic and ever-young crooner – who’s just showing his age in his seventh decade – bought a rough and beautiful patch of the Algarve some 20 years ago. He hired Aussie winemaker David Baverstock (who runs a renowned estate in Alentejo to the north) and produced a syrah blend – Vida Nova – that sold out in a matter of days to the star’s fan club. Before you point out that Cliff’s fan club (his jaunty and unthreatening rock and roll goes down wonderful with a certain kind of British mum) would have bought bottles of banana-oil if he told them to, it’s worth noting that the wine is a rustic but eminently likeable and reasonably-priced bottle. Richard put the estate up for sale last year, before winning £1m ($1.26m) damages from South Yorkshire police for disclosing private information in a sexual assault case that was subsequently dropped.