A Life In Wine And Golf

For legendary golfer Greg Norman, wine is both business and pleasure

Courtesy of Harvey Steiman
Wine Spectator Magazine
Nov. 15, 2007

In 1976, a raw young Australian golfer named Greg Norman won his first golf tournament at the West Lakes Classic in Adelaide. Part of the prize was a case of Penfolds Grange Hermitage (now simply called Grange). Then as now, Grange was Australia's most celebrated wine. "I just set it aside," Norman remembers today. "I was 21 years old. I had no idea what it was, didn't even think of opening a bottle. Then, when I came back for the tournament the next year, they took me to lunch at Penfolds. I drank a glass of Grange, and I just loved the heavy body, the flavors. It really is a friggin' beefy wine."

Some thirty years later, as his distinguished golf career winds down, Norman has transformed into a business entrepreneur. Great White Shark Enterprises, his privately held company, based in Jupiter, Florida designs and builds golf courses, among numerous other ventures. (The company moniker plays on Norman's nickname as a golfer, a reflection of his flowing blond hair, piercing blue eyes and the large sharks that cruise the coastal waters of his native country.)

Norman built his company on golf-oriented businesses such a course design and products such as clubs and other equipment, sportswear, even sod. When he started looking at other enterprises beyond golf, wine came first. And, perhaps bringing things full circle, the company that owns Penfolds now makes his Greg Norman Estates wines.

Like the golfer, Greg Norman Estates' flagship bottling is a winner. Since the label debuted, with the 1998 vintage, the Shiraz Reserve has never scored fewer than 91 points on the Wine Spectator 100-point scale. It's a majestic wine at a current price of $50. The non-reserve Australian wines at $15 to $20, generally come in at 87 to 91 points. The Australian arm of the brand has grown to nearly 200,000 cases; the California branch contributes an additional 85,000.

Although Norman is not the winemaker, nor does he own the vineyards that produce the wine, his taste determines the style of every bottling made. Nothing happens without his approval.

That's how Norman operates all of his businesses. The men's shirts that carry his multicolored shark logo conform to the boss's sensibilities, although his company doesn't actually manufacture them. When it comes to Greg Norman Golf Course Design, with 60 existing golf courses and 60 others in various stages of development, from Florida to Vietnam, Norman walks the raw land and determines the general layout of the course, but someone else draws the topographical designs.

In that vein, Norman's arrangement with Foster's, the largest wine company in Australia, goes beyond a straightforward licensing deal. Rather than simply sell the winery his celebrity name, Norman negotiated a joint-venture deal so that he would have an equity stake in the wines. He insisted on being involved in tastings and marketing meetings, contributing to decisions right down to the fonts on the label.

"I wanted it to really be my brand," he says. "I'm not a connoisseur. I'm not a winemaker. But I know what I want for the general public."

Greg Norman Estates makes the kind of wines Greg Norman likes, easy to drink but full of character. And as a business, wine suits his own character, too.

"it was an extension of my lifestyle," he explains. "But it was also because I am an Australian. As I traveled around the world, it seemed to me the Australian wines were always underestimated. I knew that one thing that would make me proud was to bring Australian wines to America."

Norman rejected the idea of buying an estate winery or starting one from scratch, as many wine lovers who earned their wealth in other fields have done. "I was smart," he confides, leaning forward.

"I wanted to find the right partners. I didn't want to take on the big guys all by myself."

"One thing I learned from the golf-club business is that you can't go head-to-head with the leaders," he adds. ""But if you over deliver on quality for the price, you have a chance. I could only do that with a partner that was already in the business."

In 1997, Bart Collins, President of Norman's company, set up a meeting with Foster's Crown at the Casino Hotel in Melbourne. Fresh from the golf course where he had played in a tournament that day, Norman found himself in a room with a small group from Foster's who wanted to check him out before they agreed to go ahead with a project. Chief winemaker Chris Hatcher, chief viticulturist Vic Patrick and marketing director Hugh Cuthbertson wanted to make sure that Norman was serious. "They had all these bottles lined up," Norman recalls. "They wanted me to taste them all and tell them what I liked."

Hatcher had brought along several dozen samples representing specific vineyards in regions they had already discussed. Patrick, now retired from Foster's, recalls, "We sat and talked with him about regions, and he knew what he was talking about. Should the Chardonnay be from Hunter Valley? No, Yarra. Cabernet? Definitely Coonawarra."

Adds Patrick, "He liked the bloody good stuff, I have to tell you. This wasn't a guy looking for a quick buck on a 2-million-case brand."

Norman caught the wine bug early. He got his first real exposure to wine when he came to California in 1976 to visit friends in Sonoma, a year before his fateful taste of Grange. At 21, he had won one golf tournament in Australia and was planning to try the European tour the next year. One of his Sonoma friends was gung-ho about California Chardonnay. "The first one I tried was Trefethen," Norman recalls. "That was pretty good. I remember opening bottles of Grgich Hills, Mount Eden, Stony Hill."

"He knew what he was doing, but I knew nothing about wine," Norman says. "Being a kid growing up in Australia, I was a big beer drinker. I didn't like to drink beer with a meal, though. I discovered that I liked wine better for that."

Armed with a taste for Chardonnay, he headed off to the European golf circuit in 1977. He quickly learned that the best deal for dinner was a good bistro, and everywhere he went he tried a different wine, often something made from the Chardonnay grape to compare with what he had tasted in California. "I would look at the wine list and just pick something at random."

Pretty soon he was ordering two or three different wines, homing in on the ones he liked best. "That was a great way to learn, because you could always discover something from the differences."

Although he insists he is not a connoisseur ("I just absolutely enjoy drinking wine," he says), he knows what he likes. "It's the softness on my palate," he explains. "If the wine has a little bite to it, it's not going to make the cut with me. When I smell it, I want it to tell me whether I'm going to like it. I can drink a really heavy Cab Sav (Cabernet Sauvignon) but one glass is enough. Maybe I'll have it with a pizza. What I like are wines that go down easy and say something along the way."

In a similarly casual, almost organic way, Norman has built a significant collection of wines, which he stores at his homes in Florida and Colorado.

A 3,500-bottle wine cellar at his home in Florida contains his personal treasures, including multiple vintages of Stag's Leap, Heitz, Jordan and Chalone from California - "the wines I fell in love with when I first visited California in the 1970's," he says - plus some stars from Australia, including a dozen vintages of Penfolds Grange and a few stacks on his own Shiraz Reserve. "My favorite," he grins.

"I have them lined up," he says gesturing with both hands as he describes the layout. "Australian wines over here, California wines there, and then other wines I like to drink."

His cellar emphasizes Australian Shiraz, beginning with his collection of Grange, which includes the 1955, 1982, 1986, 1990, 1991 and 1992 vintages. Other Shirazes include 1996s from Rockford, Normans, Mount Ida and Saltram. There's Clarendon Hills Shiraz and Grenache, Elderton Command and Vasse Felix Heytesbury from the late 1990s.

There are plenty of Cabernet Sauvignons from the early and mid 1990s, too, including Wolf Blass President's Selection and Rosemount Reserve from Australia, and Opus One, Chateau Montelena and Joseph Phelps Insignia from California. A nifty collection of 1997 California reds includes Pride Mountain Merlot, Bayliss & Fortune Zinfandel, Landmark Pinot Noir and Beringer Merlot Bancroft Vineyard.

Bordeaux, dating mostly from the mid-1990s, include Chateaus Margaux, Haut-Brion, Gruaud-Larose and Leoville Las Cases, but there is also some Calon-Segur 1955 and l962 and Cheval-Blanc 1978. Racks of Champagne hold Taittinger, Bollinger Grande Annee, Dom Perignon and Moet & Chandon Brut Imperial.

Norman has another cellar at his summer home in Meeker, Colorado, once a 12-room guest lodge on one of the three contiguous ranch properties he owns. He sometimes entertains business associates or friends there. "We have a thousand bottles (in Colorado), he says. "I like to pull out a good Aussie wine to show them off. Maybe a Devil's Lair Chardonnay from Margaret River, not just my own wines."

He says he likes to explore the house's well-hidden cellar just to see what's there and to think about when he might drink it.

"When we have guests, I go down there and pick out the wines myself," he says. One section display rows of familiar Champagne bottle necks - Taittinger, Pol Roger, Dom Perignon and Veuve Clicquot. There's a stack of Hugel Riesling Jubilee from recent vintages and rows of Henschke Cabernet Sauvignon Cyril Henschke 1991, Lynch-Bages 1990, Lafite 1996 and Mouton 1986. "I'll pull those out, too," he adds. "It's for drinking, isn't it?"

The Bordeaux came with the lodge, which he bought in 2004 from financier Henry Kravis. "He said, 'Here's the key, keep whatever's there.' I like the way he does business. It was like Christmas when I walked in here and started looking at the bottles."

His 24-year-old daughter, Morgan Leigh Norman, now lives in Napa Valley. After graduating from Boston College, she went to chef's school in Florida and hopes to use that experience to build her own career in the wine business. She selects a few cases a month for her dad's Florida cellar.

Norman often brought his family along on his world travels as a golfer, and Morgan remembers sitting at the dinner table as he poured wine for her and her brother, Gregory. "With my father's crazy schedule," she says, "it is so nice to be able to slow down at the end of the day with a beautiful glass of wine, and share that experience with family and friends appreciating the same thing - the wine and food."

She credits her choice of career to this exposure to other cultures, cuisines and wines. "We always took the time to sit down to dinner with each other, and there was always wine, everywhere we went. Most children never have that opportunity."

"I really enjoyed introducing my kids to wine," Norman muses. "Now that they are adults, they will sit down and have a glass of wine with me. They got into enjoying wine for what it is, not to be fancy or anything."

When they entertain, he likes to keep things casual. But the food is hardly pedestrian. "I don't cook, but I'll fire up the barbie and do a lobster of some other seafood, maybe a good piece of Wagyu," he says. "Put them on a slow fire and let people stand around outside, sipping good wine and talking. Take your time. That's what I like to do."

The code on the tail fin of the Gulfstream V parked in a quiet corner of Palm Beach International Airport reads N1GN. It's the only exterior indication that the private jet is Norman's. Overcast skies make the morning gray as Norman pulls up to the jet in his black Range Rover. A camera crew from the Golf Channel trains its lens on him as he climbs out the SUV. He is wearing shorts, a golf shirt and thong sandals. The crew follows him up the stairway into the airplane, past the big shark logo on the polished wood paneling.

Despite the casual garb, this is a typical day for Greg Norman, businessman. He is flying to Nashville, Tenn., where he will appear at the groundbreaking for Laurel Cove, a residential development where his golf-course design company is building the links. After the ceremony, he will walk the cattle ranch the course will soon occupy to see whether plans drawn from topgraphical maps make sense to a golf pro in the real world. After a quick change of clothing, he will appear briefly at an event to promote the project to potential buyers and members, then jump back on the jet to return home that evening.

It has been six years since he won his last golf tournament, the 2001 Skins Game, but his career and his image are still more familiar than those of most of the golfers currently playing the PGA Tour.

A World Golf Hall of Fame member, Norman was ranked No. 1 in the world seven times during the 12-year span from 1986 to 1997. He won 20 PGA tournaments and 66 others around the world, including the Australian Masters five times and the Australian Open five times.

Golf fans remember some heartbreaking final-round meltdowns. He shot a 76 on the final day of the 1986 PGA Championship, opening the door for the miraculous bunker shot by Bob Tway to win the tournament. In fact, in 1986 he led all four majors after three rounds, but won only the British Open. Nonetheless, his career includes seven second place finishes in majors and two wins, the British Open of 1986 and of 1993.

Norman parlayed his success on the golf tour into the multifaceted company he leads today, a business that bought the luxury jet stamped with his logo.

"Every time I walk up to this airplane, I pinch myself," he whispers, settling into customary leather seat and pulling his legs under him as if he were on his living room sofa. "Once, I was an assistant pro making $28 a week. I can never forget where I came from."

Maybe that's what makes him appear so comfortable whether he's conferring with his staff on the sleek jet or negotiating deals with big wineries and clothing companies. Speaking off the cuff to 800 potential investors in Nashville, he drops casual references to the NFL Tennessee Titans and how central Tennessee fits into the global economy.

But the highlight of the day for him comes at the project site.

"When I go to a virgin site, with all that rough terrain to walk over, I can't wait to plow my way through, see how well it will fit. This part I love with a passion," he says, striding up to a 4-inch white PVC pipe planted in a meadow next to a small stream. The pipe, painted red at the top with a black number 1 stenciled on it, represents the location of the first tee.

"With each course," he says, "you have to repect the environment, respect the developer, and most of all, repect the golfer who's going to play it." That's an echo of what he wants the public at large, not just connoisseurs, to know about his approach to creating the Greg Norman Estate wines.

On the site where the second green is tentatively slated, Norman huddles with his designers and the project's landscape architect. He has already changed the direction of one hole for better sight lines, explored what it would take to move some trees without running afoul of environmental regulations, and relocated the tees on the first hole to take advantages of a passing stream. Now, having seen the lay of the land, he thinks it will make more sense to change the order of the holes. The designers look at one another. "He's right," says the architect. "Let's change it."

"My staff says I do 45 seconds of thinking and cause somebody 45 hours of work," he laughs. "But it's my idea." That's the way Norman works with all the aspects of his business, which keeps 230 employees busy.

Aside from Greg Norman Golf Course Design, he has two residential development companies - Medallist, with 6,000 units in five golf communities, and Southern Cross, with developments in emerging markets. He sold his clothing company to MacGregor Golf in 2006 while buying a significant stake in the company. (The Greg Norman Collection sells $90 million a year in apparel.) Greg Norman Australian Prime imports to the United States more than 150,000 pounds of Wagyu and prime beef from Australia's oldest corporation, the Australian Agricultural Company. Greg Norman's Australian Grille in North Myrtle Beach, S.C. a Wine Spectator Award of Excellence winner, emulates a Sydney harborside restaurant. It is the model for planned upscale chain.

Closer to the golf course, Greg Norman Turf Company licenses proprietary grasses for golf courses, athletic fields and home lawns. Norman's turf carpeted Super Bowl XXXIII in Miami and XXXV in Tampa, Fla., the 1999 World Series in Atlanta and the 2000 Olympic Games in Sydney. He's out of the golf-club business now, but the Greg Norman Production Company has the management contract for two PGA Tour-sanctioned events - the Merrill Lynch Shootout in Naples, Fla., in December, and the Mayakoba Golf Classic in Riviera Maya, Mexico, in February.

Even when he's out making personal appearances on behalf of nonvinous products, "I somehow always segue into the wine," he laughs. "It's another way for people to connect with this company. Wine is such a beautiful connector with people. That's what wine is all about for me. Golf is not like that. If you're doing well, people are jealous. With wine, people encourage you."

Many celebrities have their own wines on the market these days - film director Francis Ford Coppola, quarterback Joe Montana, race-car driver Mario Andretti and Actor Gerard Depardieu, among others. Fellow golfer Ernie Els makes wine at Stellenbosch in South Africa and has received high scores from Wine Spectator. But Norman is unique in that he teamed up with a winery big and broad enough to tailor his eponymous wines to his taste.

Foster's tapped Andrew Hales to head Greg Norman Estates. Hales was chief winemaker for Jamiesons Run in Coonawarra, a brand that Foster's sells mostly in Australia. "Australia is renownedfor its bigger-style wines," says Hales, "but Greg likes more of a medium body and elegance. So do I, which is why we focus on Limestone Coast for the reds instead of Barossa or McLaren Vale."

Limestone Coast, a region that includes Coonawarra, Padthaway and Wrattonbully, has a cooler climate than Barossa and produces racier red wines. You can taste the zip and freshness in the Greg Norman Estates Shiraz, Shiraz-Cabernet and Cabernet-Merlot, all labeled Limestone Coast. Since 2001, the Shiraz Reserve has also been from Limestone Coast. The Chardonnay carries a Victoria designation, primarily using grapes from Yarra Valley, another cooler region that aims for an elegant style.

Hales confirmed that Greg Norman Estates stands near the head of the line when it comes time to select grapes from the thousands of acres of Foster's vineyards, right behind Penfolds' reserve-level wines.

Greg Norman California Estates, released just last year, has scored 82 to 87 points so far (good to very good). Although the wines represent good value, it has taken several vintages to determine what will work best stylistically.

Made at Beringer in Napa Valley, the line includes a Cabernet Sauvignon with a North Coast appellation, Chardonnay and Pinot Noir from Santa Barbara County, Petite Sirah from Paso Robles and Zinfandel from Lake County. In the works is a San Luis Obispo Syrah Reserve using cuttings taken from Penfolds' renowned Australian vineyards Kalimna and Magill. Foster's originally planned to make a separate wine from this vineyard, but the company now has the fruit earmarked for Norman's California brand.

Ron Schrieve, who makes the wines in California, admits to some early stumbles. "We wanted to go in a different direction [from the Australian wines]," he says. "I think we went a little too far at first, and now I'm trying to build more depth and flavor into the wines." Schrieve offered samples of wines soon to be released that confirm this evolution in style.

"I'm a Chardonnay drinker," says Norman. "we worked hard to get the California wine to be quintessentially Californian in style and different from the Australian Chardonnay. I kept telling myself, you're not an expert, trust your experts, but be strong enough in your mind to say, 'This one is a little sweet, that one's missing something.' We went back again and again, and I think we're getting there."

For Norman, a crowning achievement in wine came at Wine Spectator's 2005 New York Wine Experience. Greg Norman Estates Shiraz Reserve 1999 had scored 96 points and earned the No. 8 spot in the 2004 Top 100. On the dais, seated alongside Eric de Rothschild of Chateau Lafite, Paolo Scavino from Barolo and California's Peter Michael, Norman says, "I had to pinch myself that I was up there."

Grinning at the memory, he adds, "That was one of the highlights of my career. But even more important, it showed that Australian wine, my wine, could stand up to what generations of Europeans can do."

The wine wowed the crowd with its power and depth. It positively vibrated with ultraripe raspberry, blackberry, licorice, sweet pepper and spices, all balanced with juicy acidity and finishing with remarkable harmony and tremendous length.

In the end, Norman admits to getting the same level of satisfaction from drinking his wines as he does from playing one of his courses. "It's different," he adds. "The golf course will be there a lot longer than the wine will be. But I'm just a nervous about tasting it for the first time. My first sip is guarded. the second is better. And if the wine is good, by the third sip I can relax. And smile."