NEW YORK CITY – (February 27, 2006) Vivid Girl Savanna Samson made the front page of The New York Times’ Fashion & Style section on Sunday February 26 with a major story about her new wine under the headline “Naked Came the Vintner” (http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/26/fashion/sundaystyles/26SAVANNA.html).

Reporter Warren St. John cites Samson’s credentials as an adult superstar and notes that “It’s even possible that no fan of Savanna Samson has ever had the thought, ‘Savanna Samson: wine,’ at any time, ever.”  But, he says that’s all changed now as “her first production, a 2004 vintage of an Italian red wine that she calls Sogno Uno (Dream One), makes its debut this week at wine stores and restaurants in Manhattan.”

 

The reporter writes: “Savanna Samson — her real name is Natalie Oliveros — is a porn star, and a noted one at that. As a Vivid girl, one of the actors whose work is produced and marketed by the goliath Vivid Video, Savanna Samson is a porn celebrity. She is the star of 25 sexually explicit films, a two-time winner of the Adult Video News Award for best actress, and her work with Jenna Jameson in "The New Devil in Miss Jones," a remake of a classic, won last year's award for the best all-girl sex scene. But what sets her effort apart from the vanity wines of other celebrities like Madonna and the Rolling Stones is that it is good — extremely good if the wine expert Robert M. Parker is to be believed. After tasting a young bottle of Sogno Uno at a Paris bistro last fall, Mr. Parker gave Ms. Oliveros's wine a rating of 90 to 91 or outstanding, a judgment that quickly became the talk of the wine world. ‘It's a very fine wine — awfully good,’ Mr. Parker said by telephone. ‘It was really opulent and luscious and it had a personality.’”

 

The report goes on to note that, “Sipping a glass of Sogno Uno last week at La Masseria, an Italian restaurant in Midtown, Ms. Oliveros said she put the same passion into her wine that she puts into her sex scenes, even as she expected the wine world to turn up its nose.  ‘People have to be laughing when they hear about it,’ she said. ‘But I didn't want it to be a joke.’ As for the Parker rating, Ms. Oliveros said, ‘He should've given it a 93.’"

 

The Times reports that Peppe Luele, the owner of La Masseria, where the wine will be introduced on Monday February 27, plans to serve Sogno Uno at his restaurant at a price of $70 to $80 a bottle.”

 

In his profile of Savanna, St. John notes,  “If there is a such a thing as the ‘average porn star,’ it's a safe bet that Ms. Oliveros does not fit into that category….As much as she enjoyed making pornographic movies, Ms. Oliveros said there was something about them that left her unfulfilled. On a vacation in Tuscany last year, she said, she was struck by something akin to an existential crisis. ‘How can I leave a mark on this world?’ she asked herself. ‘And I thought, 'Wine.' “

 

The article concludes, “the success or failure of her wine venture will be determined in the coming weeks by wine distributors and critics. She said she is optimistic, enough so that she just went to Italy to taste potential blends for a white wine, which she would call Sogno Due. She suggested that potential customers approach her wine the way she approaches some newfangled sexual position on the set of one of her movies. ‘Don't knock it till you try it,’ she said.”