There... all better now!!!
Posted on 03/23/2006 7:10:40 AM PST by Millee
It seemed like the perfect gimmick: a celebrity porn star would launch her own wine, with her alluring picture on the label.
Savanna Samson did just that, but when it received a score of 90 to 91 out of 100 by wine guru Robert Parker, the project became serious. It turns out Samson, the star of "The New Devil in Miss Jones," has produced an exceptional wine, becoming the toast of two industries: wine-making and pornography.
"I never wanted to just do gimmick. That would just happen with me being a porn star, me having a photographer shoot the label, how risque could I get on the label -- all those things," Samson, the stage name for 31-year-old Natalie Oliveros, said in an interview.
The seriousness of the idea was lining up a respected wine maker. So she convinced Italy's Robert Cipresso -- also a vintner to the Vatican -- to join the project.
Samson went to Tuscany and tasted dozens of Cipresso's Italian-grown varieties, then she selected a mix of 70 percent Cesanese, 20 percent Sangiovese and 10 percent Montepulciano. She ordered over 400 cases.
"I knew I wanted Roberto to make my wine -- I just love his passion for wine," said Samson.
The result is Sogno Uno, a 2004 vintage of an Italian red wine packaged under the Savanna name with a label of Samson in a see-through gown. It was launched last month.
Parker has been called the most influential wine critic in the world, and a score of 90 to 95 denotes "an outstanding wine of exceptional complexity and character."
"Trust me, I didn't add any points for Ms. Samson's personal presentation," Parker wrote in his review.
NAUGHTY AND SPICE
Samson is one of the biggest names in pornography, having won best actress in the Adult Video News Awards (AVN), the pornographic equivalent of the Oscars, and another AVN Award for a scene she shared with Jenna Jameson in last year's "The Masseuse." She has made two dozen porn flicks.
The wine "really represents who I am," said Samson.
"There's spiciness -- the Cesanese has the naughty side of me. And yet it's an elegant wine. I love the opera, and I'm a classically trained ballet dancer. And there is some chocolate undertone, which I just love. There's a little bit of sweetness. Like, 10 percent of the time I'm sweet," she said.
She is working on a white wine -- Sogno Due -- that could be out later this year, and also has ideas of expanding into champagne, ice wine and grappa.
Samson, who was raised Catholic in upstate New York, said it was pure coincidence that Cipresso also sells wines to the Vatican. She met him through her husband, a wine merchant.
"My priest said in Mass once, 'Violence or pleasures of the flesh. What is the greater of two evils?' I think we all know the answer. I felt like he was saying that toward me," she said.
Still, she never had her parent's blessing for her career choice as an adult movie star. "They were so devastated. They were terribly, terribly upset."
But while she will continue her film career, wine-making may offer some redemption. "I wanted to do something that my parents could be proud of," she said.
A white wine, of course.
Unless it's a surf and turf, then perhaps a dry red.
It's a good thing alcohol is an effective disinfectant!
Sommeliers ping!
There... all better now!!!
11:00 PM Sun, Mar 26 SECRET LIVES OF WOMEN: WOMEN IN PORN
11:00 PM Tue, Mar 28 SECRET LIVES OF WOMEN: WOMEN IN PORN
Complete Schedule
These ladies are superstars from one of the toughest and most profitable industries around. No... they're not wrestlers, real estate agents, or high school teachers... they're in porn. Hear the stories from both sides of the camera as we talk to executives and performers alike.
I thought animal labels were the latest fad....
LOL!!!!
Sorta - Kinda - Dom Ping?
So, will they be selling the wine and her movies as a box set?
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Roberto Cipresso, a respected Italian wine maker who worked for the late Pope John Paul II, has jolted the enological world by partnering with Natalie Oliveros, better know as Savanna Samson, a New York blonde porn queen who recently earned the US porn industry's highest award for best all-girl sex scene.
The unexpected collaboration between a top porn star and a former papal vintner has produced Sogno Uno (Dream One), an Italian red wine that is described as earthy, luscious and full-bodied when it was released in New York at the beginning of March. Robert Parker defused the wine world's suspicions that the product was just a celebrity publicity stunt by rating it at 91 points out of 100, and commented that it was "an outstanding wine of exceptional complexity and character."
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The image that appears on the label of Sogno Uno |
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The bottle's label features Ms. Samson wearing only a see-through negligee, a fact that Parker declared did not affect his evaluation of the wine. When he met her at a pre-launch party in November 2005, he said he was impressed with her "good palate" more than by her "provocative" dress.
Daniel Oliveros, a Manhattan wine merchant married to Samson, introduced her to Cipresso. In her own words, she had suffered an existential crisis while vacationing in Tuscany in 2005, thus decided to "leave a mark on this world" through wine. Determined to create her own wine, she approached Cipresso, who is best known for the high quality Brunello di Montalcino wines and for having produced a special cuvee for the Pope John Paul II to mark the papal jubilee in November, 2000.
After tasting different blends proposed by the winemaker, Samson selected a rare combination of Cesanese from Latium and Tuscan Montepulciano grapes, with the addition of a small amount of Sangiovese grapes from the Chianti wine zone.
Sogno Uno is selling for $38 a bottle at New York wine dealers and up to $70 in restaurants (see up-to-date ).
Samson is the latest celebrity to lend her name to wine labels, joining the Rolling Stones, Carlos Santana, Bob Dylan, Simply Red's Mick Hucknall, Madonna, Sir Cliff Richard, the defunct Elvis Presley and Marilyn Monroe, golfers Ernie Els and Greg Norman, and many more. Wine is hip and cool, and apparently getting cooler by the moment.
Journalist Frank Cerabino of the Palm Beach Post, noticed that the vocabulary of wine appreciation is startlingly similar to that of porn film critique.
"It turns out there is less difference than you might imagine in discussing, say, a good Pinot Noir and Savanna Samson's performance in Last Girl Standing," he wrote. Of both, one might say that they are "velvety with a hint of cherry" and have "a pleasant lingering finish."
Parker's tasting verdict, however, placed Sogno Uno on the same level as a Château Margaux from a decent year. The wine critic pointed out that when he used the words "opulent and luscious," he was referring to the wine, not to Ms. Samson herself.
She then dated the high school kid for a little while afterwards, which annoyed the kid's mother pretty good.
That's the kinda gal that can make a couple of big jugs of whine tolerable.......:o)
ping
Click to be +/- on this low volume list.Oenology chat ping.
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Sniffing the cork should be interesting. |
Your thinking of that burper Houston (not necessarily a bad thing :o) I believe ..... I could be wrong.
http://www.silive.com/prom/0620prom.html
Savannah did something wacky on the show though. I can't remember what her claim to Stern fame was.
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