Yao Ming wine

Now that he's done with professional basketball, NBA superstar Yao Ming is setting his sights elsewhere: wine, of course.

Chinese media reported Wednesday that the first round of Yao Ming-branded wine, a bottle of 2009 cabernet sauvignon, is set to debut at a charity auction for Special Olympics this weekend. A total of 1,200 bottles of the wine will be available separately for private sale at $600 a bottle. Yao Ming Family Wines, the newly minted company making the sports star's wine, is sourcing grapes from California's Napa Valley, the China Daily newspaper reported.

Yao, a 31-year-old basketball sensation who retired from the Houston Rockets in July, in large part due to recurring injuries, returned to Shanghai thsi year and enrolled in university courses. Yao, who was drafted by the NBA in 1999, was the first international player to make the NBA without having played American college basketball first.