Dan Aykroyd Joins Wine Rush With Ottawa Vintage

Dan Aykroyd has turned to an unexpected source of help in his attempt to reinvent himself as a producer of fine wines. The film star and comedian has launched a range of wines under his own name from his native Canada and has turned to the urbane Manhattan novelist, Jay McInerney, for final approval. McInerney has been invited to sit on the tasting panel that will give the go-ahead to the wines.

The pairing is less unlikely than it appears. Aykroyd has been investing for over a year in the wines of his home town, Ottawa, and says the move from comedy into wineries is a natural one for him. "It's about entertainment. And entertaining today is about food and wine," he told a Canadian magazine, enRoute.

McInerney, best known for his novel Bright Lights, Big City, has developed a strong line in wine writing and blogs on wine for House and Garden magazine.

His wine essays have been drawn together this autumn in his latest book, A Hedonist in the Cellar. It contains vintage McInerney phrases such as his descriptions of a Californian chardonnay - "like a Ginsu blade concealed in a peach".

Aykroyd joins a growing list of celebrities using their name as a marketing tool to sell wine. Asked how he defined a good wine, he said: "Anything with a 'saint' in it, I found, was good, like Saint-Emilion, and anything with an 'x' like Margaux. Anything with an 'x' or a 'saint' is going to have a nice bold, mixed flavour."