Denzel Washington discusses staggering extent of his $8,000-a-day wine 'addiction'

Denzel Washington has spoken about his love of wine which saw him drinking $4,000 bottles from his 10,000 bottle cellar

Denzel Washington has spoken about his craving for wine and how he used to spend $8,000-a-day to secure the finest bottles for him to drink.

The 69-year-old actor, who is currently starring in Ridley Scott’s Roman sequel, Gladiator II, has been spurred into an overhaul of his wellbeing as he began a new fitness regime and ditched his incredible wine consumption which was costing hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Writing in Esquire magazine, Denzel said that singer Lenny Kravitz was the catalyst for his new regime, revealing that the rock star told him: "I wanna hook you up with a trainer." Denzel admitted that since beginning this new outlook, he has become stronger as well as shedding pounds in weight.

Denzel continued: "I started with him February of last year. He makes the meals for me and we’re training, and I’m now 190-something pounds on my way to 185. I was looking at pictures of myself and Pauletta at the Academy Awards for Macbeth, and I’m just looking fat, with this dyed hair, and I said, ‘Those days are over, man.’ I feel like I’m getting strong. Strong is important.”

From the late 1990s, Denzel enjoyed a bottle or two of wine and 10 years after he quit drinking alcohol, he remembered the heady days when he didn't think twice in enjoying more than one $4,000 bottle a day, as well as having 10,000 bottles in his cellar.

Writing about that period, Denzel revealed: “Wine was my thing, and now I was popping $4,000 bottles just because that’s what was left. And then later in those years I’d call Gil Turner’s Fine Wines & Spirits on Sunset Boulevard and say, ‘Send me two bottles, the best of this or that.’ And my wife’s saying, ‘Why do you keep ordering just two?’ I said, ‘Because if I order more, I’ll drink more. So I kept it to two bottles, and I would drink them both over the course of the day.”

Denzel said that in 1999, he built his huge wine cellar but admitted that he tried to mask his drinking habit by only ordering high-end bottles. The actor continued: “I had this ideal idea of wine tastings and all that, which is what it was at first. And that’s a very subtle thing. I mean, I drank the best. I drank the best.

“I’ve done a lot of damage to the body. We’ll see. I’ve been clean. Be 10 years this December. I stopped at 60 and I haven’t had a thimble’s worth since. Things are opening up for me now – like being 70. It’s real. And it’s OK. This is the last chapter – if I get another 30, what do I want to do? My mother made it to 97.”

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