The intersection of Hollywood and vine

Celebrity wines: marketing gimmicks, they certainly are, but darn good ones.

Tying wines to celebrities, dead or alive, is proving to be good business. Peering out from a wide variety of bottles are such iconic figures as Marilyn Monroe, Elvis Presley and Davy Crockett (OK, Fess Parker). The late Jerry Garcia has his own line of Sonoma wines, as do a slew of movie and music celebs. Actor Sam Neill started Two Paddocks, a well-regarded New Zealand pinot producer, in 1997. "I wanted to produce a good pinot noir that would, at the very least, be enjoyed by my family and friends," Neill writes on his Web site. "Frankly, my friends will pretty much drink anything, so this didn't seem too hard."

Other celebs trying their hand at wine, more or less seriously, include Sting (he owns a vineyard in Tuscany), Sir Cliff Richard (his Portuguese Vida Nova wines sell briskly in the UK), Gérard Depardieu (he owns a château in the Loire and vineyards in the Rhone, and certainly has the nose of a true vigneron) and Olivia Newton-John (her label is called Koala Blue).

Simply Red crooner Mick Hucknall has a vineyard in Sicily, where he produces a Nero d'Avola called "Il Cantante" (the singer); Mötley Crüe rocker Vince Neil has recently released a pair of Vince Vineyards wines, a Napa cabernet and a Sonoma chardonnay. Made, no doubt, from some nonmotley crus, both are getting pretty good reviews.

Of course, director Francis Ford Coppola has been at the helm of a serious winery for years; now Oscar-winning daughter Sophia has her own bubbly, served in a can no less! And now Bruce Cohn, longtime manager for the Doobie Brothers band, has released a Doobie Red "Series" through his Sonoma winery, B.R. Cohn.

The Doobie Red is a blend of Sonoma county cabernet sauvignon, merlot and cabernet franc, sold in three-bottle sets ($96 a set) and featuring three different album-cover labels: "The Doobie Brothers," "Toulouse Street" and "The Captain and Me." It can be ordered directly from the winery (www.brcohn.com). Some of the proceeds benefit the National Veterans Foundation.

Oh, but there's more! An Italian winery, Le Terrazze, is making a Planet Waves Montepulciano/merlot blend signed by Bob Dylan that is selling briskly for $65 a bottle. "You may call it destiny, you may call it coincidence, you may call it a simple twist of fate," reads the back label. "What pushed two guys from opposite corners of the world to put their names on a bottle of Italian red wine?"

We can't say why the inscrutable songwriter does anything, but the winery's owner, Antonio Terni, a self-described "Bobcat" (extreme Dylan fan), is clearly a man with a vision. In fact, he also makes an even rarer Dylan-inspired wine called "Visions of J." Presumably it keeps you up past the dawn.

Apart from rockers, golfers seem most intent on trading life on the road for life in the rows. Arnold Palmer, Ernie Els, Greg Norman and Nick Faldo are all golfing pros currently involved in vineyard/winery projects of some sort.

In terms of quality, Els stands at the top of the list. In 1999 he partnered with winemaker Jean Engelbrecht to purchase a South African vineyard; a new Engelbrecht Els winery opened its doors last December.

The 2003 Engelbrecht Els Red (about $48) is a meaty South African blend of five Bordeaux grapes, spiced up with a bit of shiraz. There is also an Ernie Els Red (about $85), Bordeaux style in blend and flavor.

"We want to exceed expectations of celebrity wine," Engelbrecht told me during a Seattle visit last month. "We will not do the Ernie Els wine without him sitting in and approving the blend, purely on his palate."

The Greg Norman Estate wines, from the Limestone Coast of Australia, get high marks for their bracing minerality and reasonable prices. His California Estates line, by comparison, seems rather ordinary, save for the earthy, rugged Lake County zinfandel.

The Engelbrecht Els and Greg Norman wines are distributed in Seattle, though many of the higher quality celeb wines listed above are not. Most of these wines, good or bad, trade on the value of someone's name, and charge a premium for it.

A handful are genuine collectibles, notably the Marilyn Merlot, now in its 19th vintage. Rare older Marilyn bottles can fetch hundreds of dollars, and a complete set of the first 12 vintages is being advertised on the Web site for $7,000. Maybe her candle burned out long ago, but her bank account is doing just fine.

Of the other celeb wines I have tasted, few warrant an enthusiastic recommendation. Arnold Palmer has lent his name to a California chardonnay and cabernet — his signature appears on the bottles' neck, front, back and even the cork! — but the wines are chip shots at best, short and simple.

The Elvis wines, titled with fun names such as Jailhouse Red Merlot and Blue Suede Chardonnay, have novelty appeal, though the overall labeling and packaging is cheap looking.

I like the J. Garcia wines, which feature Garcia's own noodlings as labels. The 2001 merlot and 2001 cab are decent bottles (the '01 zin is getting a bit long in the tooth) that sell for around $14; there is a pleasant chardonnay also.

The 2003 Marilyn Merlot ($25) was released on June 1, the late cinema queen's birthday. Bob and Donna Holder, who brokered an exclusive agreement with Monroe's estate for the use of her name and image, first came up with the idea at a dinner party at their Napa valley home back in 1983. Ch-ching!

The lineup now includes a Marilyn Cabernet ($38), a Norma Jeane Merlot (young, of course; $10.50) and a limited-edition "Velvet Collection" in magnum ($200). The local distributor gets 400 cases of the mainline Marilyn and, reports sales director Scott Murphy, "it comes and it goes, which is quite nice!" Sold out at the distributor, but some bottles may still be available at retail or through the winery Web site, www.marilynmerlot.com.

Paul Gregutt is the author of "Northwest Wines." His column appears weekly in the Wine section. He can be reached by e-mail at wine@seattletimes.com.