The photonuclear production of vector mesons in ultraperipheral heavy ion collisions is investigated within the QCD color dipole picture, with particular emphasis on the saturation model. The integrated cross section and the rapidity distribution for the AA → V AA (V = ρ, ω, φ, J/Ψ) process are computed and theoretical estimates for scattering on both light and heavy nuclei are given for energies of RHIC and LHC. A comparison with the recent STAR data on coherent production of ρ mesons is also presented. Furthermore, we calculate the photoproduction of vector mesons in proton-proton collisions at RHIC, Tevatron and LHC energies.Recently, the STAR Collaboration released the first data on the cross section of the coherent ρ production in gold -gold ultraperipheral collisions at √ s = 130 GeV [27], providing the first opportunity to check the basic features and main approximations of the distinct approaches describing nuclear vector meson photoproduction. The main aspect is that real photons have