THE COMPETITION

As CJ McCollum has shown, affection for wine in the NBA goes well beyond impressive home cellars and packing cases of Château Haut-Brion on team road trips. The stealth status symbol these days is a label of your own. Here are four former players who’ve traded the hardwood for French oak.

YAO FAMILY WINES Yao Ming

• It’s probably safe to assume there isn’t a taller wine producer out there than the 7-foot-6 former Houston Rockets star. Long before wine became the drink du jour in the NBA, the Hall of Famer was frequenting Texas steak houses in the ’00s and learning about the best examples to pair with his meals. In 2011, the year he retired, he launched his eponymous winery in Napa Valley, which now offers multiple Cabernet Sauvignons, a dessert wine, a red blend and a sparkling.

D WADE CELLARS Dwyane Wade

• When Miami assembled its super-team in the early ’10s, the Heat’s big three of Wade,

LeBron James and Chris Bosh developed their friendship off the court with a shared love of good wine. After a 2014 visit to Napa during harvest, Wade decided to get into the business himself, launching D

Wade Cellars with vintner Jayson Pahlmeyer.

The label currently features two Cabernet Sauvignons, a Chenin Blanc and a Rosé.

FaceTimed him when Iread that and said I wanted toseehisthermostat. Iwasshocked. I was like, ‘Wow, you really love your wine, to store it at the optimal temperature.’”

He was protecting precious cargo, after all. Along with other favorites from his cellar, he brought more than 100 bottles of McCollum Heritage 91 with him to the bubble, where he could hand them out to friends around the league as sneak previews. The hope, of course, was that they’d like it—and post about it, giving his budding brand a boost.

Becauseplayershad toquarantinewhen theyfirstarrived,McCollumcouldn’ttraipse around Disney World dropping off bottles at all the hotels. So staff from the league office stepped up to help, shuttling wine to McCollum’s roster of VIPs. Of course, he had friends on that list, like Victor Oladipo and Michael Carter-Williams. But he also thought carefully about getting bottles in the hands of people he knew loved wine.

The list included Jimmy Butler, an Italian-wine devotee who traveled to Tuscany in the 2018 off-season because of his love of

ALEKSANDER

Sasha Vujacic

• While the Slovenian shooting guard was winning titles with the

Los Angeles Lakers at the turn of the last decade, his parents moved to the States to start a winery with him. In 2009, they purchased a property in Paso Robles, Calif., and created the first vintage of their Bordeaux blend in 2010. Their latest reserve release is a 2016 aged for 42 months in Serbianand French-oak barrels.

CHOSEN

FAMILY WINES Channing Frye

• Retired NBA champion Channing Frye developed an affinity for Oregon wines while playing for Portland in the late ’00s. Even as he changed teams, he and his wife made it their home base. After his playing career ended in 2019, he teamed up with L’Angolo Estate to produce a Pinot Noir, a Chardonnay and a Rosé, all of which sold out soon after their launch last fall. Another Pinot debuted in April, and additional varietals are planned beginning this summer.

Sassicaia. Another recipient of Heritage 91 was New Orleans guard JJ Redick, who is known for his enthusiasm for Barolos and Burgundiesandreceives abottle ofDomaine de la Romanée-Conti from his wife on each birthday. Redick has turned other players ontoBurgundy aswell,includingJoshHart, a Pelicans teammate. Hart, who scored a Heritage 91 too, first fell in love with wine when he played for the Los Angeles Lakers and LeBron James would serve up Mouton Rothschild on the team plane. Hart has become a big fan of Napa and Bordeaux while also dabbling in northern Rhône. He even has a dedicated Instagram feed (@JHartCellars) to show off prized bottles he’s drinking, such as a Château Latour 2009 or a Domaine Jean-Louis Chave 1995 Hermitage. Hart has become so devoted to wine that he helped fundraising efforts for disaster relief after the 2020 Napa fires and partnered with Wine Access and the Napa Valley Wine Academy to fund scholarships to increase diversity in the wine business.

So McCollum was well aware the men tasting his bottle knew their stuff—and he was ready for criticism. “NBA players are blunt,” McCollum says. But praise came at even the most unexpected times, as with Kawhi Leonard ahead of the vote on whether to continue the season, or during the first round of the playoffs—and not just in passing by the pool.

On the court, the Blazers went on a tear inside the bubble, with McCollum averaging 21.9 points per game, to squeak into the playoffs. There they faced the topseeded Lakers. “It was game one or two, and we were winning at the time,” McCollum recalls. “When you’re playing, you’re locked in. You may say, ‘What’s up?,’ at the beginning of the game, but you don’t really talk.” That game mentality was in full force that night, until McCollum lined up next to Lakers star Anthony Davis while another player attempted free throws.

As McCollum remembers it, Davis leaned in. “Hey, bro, I meant to tell you, thanks for the wine.”

“Did you like it?” McCollum replied, a little surprised by Davis’s choice of timing. “Yeah, that was good,” Davis affirmed. Remembering the moment when one of the world’s best basketball players wanted to chat about his wine amid the heat of battle still makes McCollum crack up. “He told me that during a game!”

But the overall reaction McCollum received isn’t a surprise, considering the quality of wine bearing his name. The Pinot has abackbone of acidity that gives it structure without overwhelming the palate, and it’s balanced with aslight cherry sweetness.

McCollum still had 40 bottles of his cellar stash left when the eventual-champion Lakers bounced the Blazers out of the playoffs early. Yet the bubble was far from a total loss for McCollum. All the promotion worked.Whenthe133casesproducedwent onsale inSeptemberfor $50perbottle,they were gone in 45 minutes.

With the success of his first vintage, McCollum is contemplating his next move: scale up and release more, change the price or expand into other varietals? His 2019 Pinot Noir is currently bottled, awaiting a fallrelease,andhisnewRoséwasset todrop in April. “He’s expanding his portfolio and really building asustainable business,” Hennen says. The creative outlet and business challenge wine presents are different from the lightning-fast decision-making on the court, and that is half the appeal. But there’s more: Hewants tomakewineapproachable to more people, starting at home.

“One of the things I like the most about being here is that when family comes, we can take them to our favorite spots, and I canget mymom,who ismoreintowhites, to drinkreds,and mydad totrywineinstead of beer. It’s achallenge to me,” McCollum says. “Wine can be confusing and overwhelming sometimes—it took me years of watching documentaries and harassing somms and winemakers to get where I am now—but if you embrace it, you allow yourself to try new things.”

“I’d get the ice bucket and the

bubbly by the pool, and I’d send some to other players.”