AN ITALIAN wine maker who worked for the late Pope John Paul II has found a new patron — an American porn queen whose best-known films are Big Blowout, Fetish Underground and Poke Her.

Roberto Cipresso, one of Italy’s most respected wine makers, has startled the oenological world by going into business with Savanna Samson, a curvaceous New York blonde whose last film earned her the porn industry’s highest award for best all-girl sex scene.

The improbable collaboration between the X-film actress and the former papal vintner has produced a big surprise: a highly acclaimed Italian red wine that has been described as earthy, luscious and full-bodied — and that’s just Samson’s picture on the label.

Samson has emerged as a sophisticated taster who chose a complex blend of rare Italian grapes for her Sogno Uno (Dream One) wine, which was released in New York last week.

Initial suspicion in the wine world that Samson’s label was just a celebrity publicity stunt dissolved when Robert Parker, the American wine guru, rated her effort at 91 points out of 100 — denoting “an outstanding wine of exceptional complexity and character”.

Parker later insisted that he had not been swayed by the bottle’s label, which shows Samson wearing only a see-through negligee. When he met her at a pre-launch party last November, he said he was impressed with her “good palate”, even though her dress was “provocative”.

“Trust me, I didn’t add any points for Ms Samson’s personal presentation,” Parker added.

Samson, whose real name is Natalie Oliveros, was introduced to Cipresso by her husband, Daniel Oliveros, a Manhattan wine merchant who met her when she was a dancer at Scores, a popular strip club. She has described her husband as a “very strange breed” who does not get jealous at her antics in front of the camera.

Like many New York strippers, Samson had moved to the city as a teenager in the hope of becoming a serious dancer. When she found she was not good enough, she abandoned ballet for lap dancing, then made her first adult film.

Porn stardom followed, and Samson’s career reached its zenith in January when her performance in a remake of a 1973 porn “classic”, The Devil in Miss Jones, earned her the best actress award in the porn industry’s equivalent of the Oscars.

Unbeknown to many of the studs who pleasured her on screen, Samson said she had suffered what amounted to an existential crisis last year while on holiday in Tuscany. “How can I leave a mark on this world?” she mused to The New York Times. “And I thought ‘wine’.”

Determined to create her own wine, she approached Cipresso, who is best known for the high quality red brunello wines he produces in Italy’s Montalcino region. He is also part owner of a vineyard in Argentina and in November 2000 produced a special cuvée for the pope to mark the papal jubilee.

Cipresso provided different blends of grape varieties from Italian vineyards for Samson to taste. She rejected merlot and cabernet strains, and eventually settled on a rare mix of Lazio cesanese grapes and Tuscan montepulciano. Samson then decided the blend was not quite sweet enough, so Cipresso added a small amount of the sangiovese grapes used in chianti.

Sogno Uno is selling for $38 a bottle at New York wine dealers and up to $70 in restaurants.

When news of the venture leaked out in trade reports last year, many wine merchants assumed that Samson and her husband were exploiting her notoriety to produce another bottle of celebrity plonk.

Among those who have lent their names to wine labels are the Rolling Stones, Bob Dylan, Madonna, Sir Cliff Richard, Elvis Presley, Marilyn Monroe and golfers Ernie Els and Greg Norman. The best that could be said for Samson’s effort, one merchant sniffed last year, was that she made a welcome change from Fat Bastard wines.

Then Parker delivered his tasting verdict, placing Sogno Uno on a level with a Château Margaux from a decent year. Among critics taking notice was Frank Cerabino of the Palm Beach Post, who discovered that the vocabulary of wine appreciation was startlingly similar to a 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. You might say of both that they were “velvety with a hint of cherry” or that either had “a pleasant lingering finish”, Cerabino added.

Parker insists that when he used the words “opulent and luscious”, he was referring to the wine, not Samson.

Samson has no intention of quitting the porn business, even though “most of my family is pretty ashamed of what I do”. She still enjoys being filmed having sex with strangers, but like any working actress she knows that her days as a star are numbered.

When she finally hangs up her lace suspenders, a corkscrew awaits.

Explore World News

• World Agenda

• Iraq News

• US & Americas News

• Europe News

• Middle East News

• Asia News

• Africa News

• Ireland News

Times Recommends

• Michael Jackson: Not the final chapter
• Indian Army spends10m rupees on golf buggies
• Brüno toned down for 15 rating