Unfiltered

James Brown, Bond girls' wine habits and red wines for redhead Angie Everhart

Posted: December 27, 2006

• The Christmas Day passing of the legendary singer and songwriter James Brown saddened Unfiltered over the holidays. We don't know anything about the Godfather of Soul's tastes in wine, but the man sure did know how to liven up a party. On two occasions, he performed at Wine Spectator's Wine Experience, funking it up in Las Vegas in 2002, just as he had at the event 10 years earlier. Even at the age of 69, he had the black-tie crowd shimmying and shaking like it was the '60s and '70s all over again. We're gonna miss you, Mr. Dynamite.

• James Bond may like martinis but Bond girls will stick to wine, thank you very much. On Christmas Eve, Denise Richards, who played the alluring Dr. Christmas Jones in 1999's The World Is Not Enough, was photographed stocking up on Opus One in Calabasas, Calif., with daughter Sam, 2, in tow. (No word on whether the former Playboy model was going to a holiday party or hosting one.) Earlier this year we reported that Teri Hatcher, the sexy siren (aka Paris Carver) in 1997's Tomorrow Never Dies and current Desperate Housewives star, uses sediment from red wine to polish her skin in the bath. And actress Carole Bouquet, who costarred with Roger Moore in 1981's For Your Eyes Only, makes her own European wines. With James Bond-inspired martinis on the menu at lounges such as Zola at the Spy Museum in Washington, D.C., we figure it's only a matter of time before someone releases Bond Girl Wines. They'd have a distinct advantage over the boozier drinks, especially for busy bartenders: No shaking required.

Do redheads prefer reds? Angie and her fiancé party with Rioja.

• The folks promoting Rioja wines here in the United States haven't limited their drink-our-wine-and-be-fabulous campaign to Fashion Week. Rioja wines fueled the recent launch party for JuliB's new e-zine Gloss, held at the Night Hotel in New York and attended by supermodel-actress Angie Everhart, Garrett Dutton of G Love & Special Sauce and Mark Zeff, the architect who remodeled Hilary Swank's and Chad Lowe's former love nest in the city's swanky West Village neighborhood. Everhart lounged around with a group of admirers that included her Wall Street investor fiancé Andrew Giobbe and sipped the Spanish red all night long. No promises, however, that Everhart will show up at your house if you pour Rioja wines at your next party. Especially not wearing her "costume" from beach volleyball movie Cloud 9. But it's worth a shot.

• California vintner Fred Brander of Brander Vineyard goes to great lengths to get his hands on the wines that make Wine Spectator's Top 100 Wines of the Year. For the third year in a row, Brander has scoured the nation's wine retailers and begged collectors in order to amass as many of 2006's Top 100 as possible to pour for his annual holiday party. This year he scored 45 of the Top 100. "I couldn't get No. 1 (Casanova di Neri Brunello di Montalcino Tenuta Nuova 2001), but I did get No. 2 (Quilceda Creek Cabernet Sauvignon Washington 2003) and No. 3 (Château Léoville Barton 2003)," he said. Brander set up the wines on one long table and guests mingled around, tasting as they went. Few took notes and Brander never queried the assembly for a consensus on the wines. "People had their favorites," Brander said, "This year there was a lot of comparing of the Léoville Barton and the Smith-Haut-Lafitte. Overall, it brings out a lot of food for thought."

Not your ordinary bottle.

• Want to taste history, but can't afford a Château Margaux bottle purported to have been owned by Thomas Jefferson? Head to Philadelphia, where historic City Tavern's journeyman chef Walter Staib is serving samples of colonial America at $45 a bottle. Staib is selling a white and a red that have been bottled in reproduction 18th-century clay vessels. The wines come from the Christian W. Klay Winery in the southwestern corner of Pennsylvania. On a past visit to the area, Staib met winemaker Sharon Klay, who told him that the vineyard land had once been owned by George Washington and noted that the winery is located along Route 40, a major east-west road since colonial times. "The wine is very pleasant--we sell the white with fish and the red is good with rabbit," said Staib. "But it's the story behind it and the passion of the people who make it that's really great. And everybody takes the bottle home." Plus, in keeping with Washington's Revolutionary War partnership, Klay blends her wines from French and American hybrids: Chambourcin and Leon Millot in the red and Cayuga and Vidal Blanc in the white. Today's politicians could take a lesson.