Madonna has taken to the bottle. No, she has not become alcoholic, merely the latest megastar to turn oenophile.
As of today, her fans and wine-lovers can order cases of wine under the pop diva's very own label, named after her recent best-selling album, Confessions on a Dancefloor.
The so-called Queen of Pop has teamed up with Celebrity Cellar of Napa Valley in California to launch a line of wines that includes Cabernet Sauvignon, Barbera, Pinot Grigio and alcohol-free UnWine.
According to the Celebrity Cellars website, the wines are "as complex and sophisticated as the artist herself". They are also quite affordable, as the price ranges from $25 (£14) for the non-alcoholic UnWine to $40 for the Cabernet.
Celebrity Cellars specialises in limited edition wines featuring such music icons as the Rolling Stones, the Grateful Dead, Bob Dylan, Frank Sinatra and Bob Marley.
Madonna is just the latest celebrity to dip into the wine business. Sir Cliff Richard has a vineyard on his property in the Algarve and a winery called Adega do Cantor (the cellar of the singer) outside the town of Albufeira on Portugal's south coast.
Sting has vineyards in Tuscany and Mick Hucknall, the lead singer of Simply Red, has vineyard holdings on the slopes of Mount Etna in Sicily. Down under, Olivia Newton-John owns the Koala Blue label, while her fellow Australian Greg Norman has a line of wines with his trademark shark logo that has won high praise.
The first and most avid celebrity winemaker is Francis Ford Coppola, the director of the Godfather films. When his movie career turned stale, Mr Coppola sought solace in the grape, so to speak, by buying the historic Napa Valley winery Inglenook in 1975 and renaming it Niebaum-Coppola.
His daughter Sofia, who directed Lost in Translation, followed in dad's footsteps with her sparkling wine in pop cans.
Another cinematic figure, Gerard Depardieu, owns a chateau in the Loire valley, Chateau Gadet in the Medoc as well as 5.5 acres of vineyard in the Languedoc.
It is not hard to fathom why the likes of Coppola and Depardieu entered the wine business. They are unabashed lovers of the grape and good food as their respective girths indicate. With Madonna, the motives are harder to divine. Madonna may well be a genuine oenophile. On the other hand, the wine venture could represent a vanity project that cultivates an image of sophistication that goes well with her new persona as a member of English upper class.
