John Lasseter   Photo: Theo Kingma

The trend of celebrities owning wineries and vineyards is spreading. Francis Ford Coppola‘s Rubicon Estate in Napa Valley has been producing a wide range of wines for the past 35 years but now more and more celebrities with money to spend and the desire and taste for their own wines, are following in his footsteps. 
   Fellow filmmaker John Lasseter, co-founder of Pixar and director of Cars 2, and his wife Nancy use Bordeaux and Rhone varietals to produce an excellent Syrah rose and a St. Emilion Red blend at their Lasseter Family Winery in Sonoma.

Depp—ships his wine

Jolie and Pitt’s chateau Val Joanis

 Johnny Depp has his own wine shipped from his vineyard near his home at Plan de la Tour in the South of France to wherever he is filming while Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie are newcomers to the trade, having recently bought Chateau Val Joanis, also in the South of France,  a 1,000 acre estate which is home to one of the oldest vineyards in the world.
Simply Red frontman Mick Hucknall owns the Il Cantante vineyard in Sicily; Mick Fleetwood has his Mick Fleetwood Private Cellars in  Lake County, California and Emilio Estevez produces wine at his Casa Dumetz near his home in Malibu.

Cliff Richard—gold medal winner

And who’d have thought it, but that bastion of sobriety and clean living, British pop star Cliff Richard, is a leading winemaker in Portugal where his Adega do Cantor winery was last year the grand winner of three of the most coveted awards in the Algarve—-gold medals for his Vida Nova white, red and rose wines.