Rupert Murdoch buys a drop of tinseltown movie pedigree with Bel Air vineyard, Moraga acquisition
The media tycoon Rupert Murdoch is currently in escrow to buy the Moraga Vineyards Estate at Bel Air.
He has tweeted about celebrating his purchase of the "beautiful small vineyard right in LA."
"Great wine," tweeted the News Corp chairman on Twitter.
Moraga is a 13-acre vineyard located in Bel Air.
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Murdoch reportedly saw the Los Angeles property featured in the real estate pages of News Corp newspaper, The Wall Street Journal listed for $US29.5 million.
Rupert Murdoch is currently in escrow to buy the Moraga Vineyards Estate at Bel Air. Moraga Vineyards is a wine growing estate in the Santa Monica Mountains at an elevation of 600 to 900 feet, five miles from the Pacific Ocean in the Los Angeles community of Bel Air.
Moraga is located next to the 405 Freeway and its near neighbours include the Getty Center.
In the 1930s, Victor Fleming, director of The Wizard of Oz and Gone With The Wind, owned the then horse ranch property which was the first commercial winery to be bonded in the city of Los Angeles after prohibition ended in 1933.
About to celebrate buying beautiful small vineyard right in LA. Great wine, Moraga, owned by great Angelino, Tom Jones. Time cover,1961!
The first Moraga red table wine was produced in 1989 and released in 1992 and its first white was produced in 1998 and released in 2000.
Murdoch's celebrations might have been a drop of its Cabernet Sauvignon or its Sauvignon Blanc. Its exclusivity is reflected in its bottle prices - $US145 for the red and $US85 for the white.
Tom Jones, the current owner, is the former CEO of the aircraft manufacturing giant, Northrop Corporation. He has owned the property for 53 years.
The LA Times reports Moraga wines are sold in the city's toniest restaurants, including the Bel Air Country Club, Nobu, the Beverly Hills Hotel, Spago and Morton's Steakhouse, along with a few in New York.
Its homestead is a 7,500 square foot Mediterranean-style main residence boasting four bedrooms, four bathrooms, a lavish octagonal dressing room and maid’s quarters.
Title Tattle recollects Rupert Murdoch was the owner of another home in the hillside of Beverly Hills with tinseltown pedigree.
It was was bought by News International for $US7 million in 1986 from the estate of MCA entertainment founder Jules Stein.
The house, which Stein named Misty Mountain, was built in the 1920s for silent film director Fred Niblo and his Australian actress-wife, Enid Bennett, who starred as Maid Marian opposite Douglas Fairbanks's Robin Hood.
It featured in Dominick Dunne 1990 novel, An Inconvenient Woman.