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Great athletes have been known to remember the minute details of games in the distant past with uncommon clarity. NBA star Jimmy Butler can tell you to the day when he first had a sip of wine, what it was, and who he drank it with. In the years since, he has grown his collection to about 11,000 bottles, including 7,500 in a custom-designed cellar at his off-season home in San Diego. Currently with the Golden State Warriors, the Tomball, Texas, native has played across the league for the past 14 years but prefers to spend his downtime in the vineyards of Europe, especially Bolgheri, Bordeaux, and Burgundy—though he does plan to spend more time Napa now that it’s just a drive from his new team.
Butler has the most interesting oenophile origin story we have ever heard. While many other wine lovers can be vague on the details of what first brought them to the fruit of the vine, the Olympic gold medalist answers with certainty. “I can tell you the damn day that I started drinking wine,” he tells Robb Report. “I started drinking wine on September the 14th of 2013.” The occasion? Butler’s 24th birthday, but it was far more than just a celebratory bottle. “On September the 13th of 2013, Mark Wahlberg was in Chicago shooting Transformers, and you know, he does travel with the entourage, it’s not just a show,” Butler says. “They contacted the Chicago Bulls because they wanted to play basketball at the practice facility, so he comes in, he looks at all the pictures on the wall of the headshots of the players, and to this day I still don’t ...
