I have it on good advice that burgundy and bordeaux will be the hot fashion colours next year.
Not only are the world's big fashion houses looking through wine-tinted glasses, they're stepping outside the fitting room and buying up vineyards and wineries. Chanel Grand Cru, anyone?
Indeed, the Wertheimer family behind Chanel recently acquired Napa Valley's St Supery Estate, adding to their wine portfolio, which also includes Chateau Canon in Saint-Emilion and Chateau Rauzan-Segla in Margaux.
Giovanni Bulgari, of the Italian high-end jewellery house, bought the Tuscan Podernuovo Estate in 2004 and Bernard Arnault, CEO of fashion megalith LVMH, bought the famed Bordeaux winery Chateau Cheval Blanc in 2011, and then created a hotel group around the name.
The highly lubricated LVMH, which owns Krug, Ruinart, Moet & Chandon, Hennessy and Veuve Clicquot, among many brands, also owns the Newton Vineyard in California. Maurice Marciano of the Guess fashion empire owns the Marciano Estate in the Napa Valley and Roberto Cavalli the Tenuta degli Dei estate in Chianti.
Ferruccio Ferragamo began the winery Il Borro in Tuscany in 2007 and his brother Massimo, CEO of the US division of the family-run fashion house (which shoemaker Salvatore launched in Florence in the 1920s) owns 73 hectares of vineyards near Montalcino in Tuscany.
I've had the pleasure of staying at the latter, which includes one of the most gorgeous hotels in the world, Rosewood Castiglion del Bosco, "the castle in the woods", set in 18,000 hectares of forest, once the king's private hunting reserve. I'm a fan of the superb Tuscan red, Brunello di Montalcino, to which 51 hectares are devoted.
Guests at the hotel can take part in the harvest, which is entirely done by hand, or enjoy guided tastings of several vintages in the immaculate winery. There's an invitation-only wine club for the very well-heeled – with its own plush, rotund cellar where member's vintages are held in specially designed refrigerated cabinets.
The business of premium wine is thriving, especially with the wealthy Chinese laying claim to the good French vintages (see the fascinating documentary Red Obsession). It makes sense for many of the traditional wine and champagne maisons to collaborate with fashion houses to raise their profiles with a new trend-obsessed market.
That's why there are so many vintages with labels created by fashion designers, notably Jean Paul Gaultier's black fishnet and Swarovski crystal "Black Can Can" special edition bottle for Piper-Heidsieck's vintage 2000 and Emilio Pucci's pink swirl label for Veuve Clicquot's 1996 vintage La Grande Dame.
Donna Karan, Zac Posen and Karl Lagerfeld are among the many fashion greats to design wine labels. Yoko Ono designed a label for Nittardi wines in Tuscany. Jade Jagger designed for La Croix de Beaucaillou in Bordeaux, to give the wine a "rock star edge". (I'm still trying to figure that one out.)
E & J Gallo in California invited British fashion designer label Basso & Brooke to be "designers in residence" and curate a blog around the wine, to attract a younger market. Although "designers in residence" at a winery does sound like something the Absolutely Fabulous girls would dream up.
Champagne houses have long collaborated with high-end fashion parades, with editors plied with bubbly before and after shows. But it doesn't stop with fashion. The beauty industry loves wine too (and not only sozzled beauty editor Patsy Stone.)
The occasional glass of red wine is, by all accounts, good for your health, so innovative Australian beauty brand Aesop produces, with Yering Station, a wine each year under its own label, celebrating the antioxidant properties of the grape.
Then there is the Caudalie beauty company, based in Bordeaux, France, and founded in 1996 by Mathilde and Bertrand Thomas, after they discovered the powerful antioxidant properties of the grapes on her family's Bordeaux vineyard Chateau Smith Haut Lafitte. The products, formulated by a French scientist, are based around a molecule extracted from the grapevine sap.
There's now a Caudalie Vinotherapie Spa in Bordeaux and another just outside Paris at Les Etangs de Corot, a lovely hotel I've visited, owned by Mathilde's sister Alice. There's also a new Caudalie Spa in New York's Plaza Hotel, which features a wine cellar. You can choose from a menu that includes Crushed Cabernet Scrub and Red Vine Bath.
Bathing in wine? That would only work if you had your own vineyard.
Forget the Birkin Bag and bring back the cardboard handbag: wine is fashion's hottest accessory.
The writer was a guest of Rosewood Castiglion del Bosco.
