YOUR 15 MINUTES: Pinot Noir and Porn?

Savanna Samson, real name Natalie Oliveros, is a Vivid Video vixen with over 25 porn movies under her garter belt, two Adult Video News Awards for best actress ( 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) and an aspiring vinter. Yes, that’s right, she’s a porn star who’s an aspiring winemaker.

Natalie wants you to think she’s not your "average porn star”:
She grew up in upstate New York with four sisters. She moved to New York to pursue a career in ballet and when she wasn’t good enough, she went over to Scores to strip for money. There she met her husband, Daniel Oliveros, a Manhattan wine merchant at Scores. He came in with his girlfriend but quickly left her for Natalie. Natalie married him, had a baby, moved to the East Side and somewhere around the time her baby was 8 months old she began her career in porn. She makes six sexually explicit movies a year, and can earn anywhere from $20,000 to upward of $100,000 per film, depending on sales. She said her husband is her toughest critic and her biggest supporter.

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. Apparently a guy’s jizz stain on a bed sheet wasn’t a big enough mark so she decided to make her mark through wine. 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. After tasting a young bottle of Sogno Uno at a Paris bistro last fall, wine expert Robert M. Parker gave Natalie’s wine a rating of 90 to 91 or outstanding, a judgment that quickly became the talk of the wine world. Peppe Luele, the owner of La Masseria, said he plans to serve Sogno Uno at his restaurant, where it will sell for $70 to $80 a bottle. Natalie plans to sell Sogno Uno for $38 a bottle. Natalie is aware that porn stars have limited time in the spotlight and that this wine venture is not just for fun but is a potential career once her screen time is over.

I concur with the statement “Savanna Samson/Natalie Oliveros isn’t your average porn star.” She isn’t your average porn star because your average porn star would slap a naked picture of her legs spread wide open onto a bottle of Boone’s Farm-esque wine to be sold at your local 7-11. Your average porn star wouldn’t have an existential crisis in Tuscany. Your average porn star would think she’s already made her mark on the world through her "art". Your average porn star wouldn’t worry about making an honest living once her career is over. I appreciate a not-that-cheap porn star making a not-totally-cheap wine. I also appreciate that she’s using wine as an airbag to save her from a dead-end career....I would appreciate it a little more if her husband wasn’t a wine merchant and they weren’t exploiting her porn career as a gimmick to sell wine. I still give them an A- for creativity and keeping it relatively classy.

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