The wines they are a-changin': bottled Bob to sell for £35

John Hooper in Rome
Tuesday March 30, 2004
The Guardian

Bob Dylan is a man of many aspects: poet, protester and born-again Christian. Now, it seems, the bard has turned to the bottle.
The eternal bohemian has developed an interest in upmarket Italian wine, with the result that, later this year, a classy blend of Montepulciano and Merlot will reach the shelves in a bottle signed by the singer and bearing the name of his 1974 album Planet Waves.

"I tried to make a wine that reflects both sides of his character," said Antonio Terni, a lifelong Dylan fan who owns a vineyard near Ancona. "Angular, difficult and unpredictable like Montepulciano, yet generous and friendly like Merlot."

On the label is a suitably inscrutable disquisition on causes and effects which ends with the words: "What pushed two guys from opposite corners of the world to put their names on a bottle of Italian red wine? Destiny? Fate? Coincidence? Planet Waves."

Their joint venture began in November when Mr Terni, who spends his holidays going to wherever Dylan is performing, met his drummer at a party in Milan. He took advantage of the meeting to send his idol a bottle of a wine he had produced called "Visions of J", after the Dylan song Visions of Johanna.

"I got back an email from his manager asking if I could do something to help him become more involved in wine," Mr Terni said. The singer has been sent samples of the new wine to approve. His only return would seem to be some free bottles.

The wine, a 2002 vintage, will retail at around £35. This may help to explain a characteristically abstruse part of Dylan's All Along the Watchtower: "Businessmen, they drink my wine, ploughmen dig my earth, None of them along the line know what any of it is worth."