Francis Ford Coppola is an American entertainment legend. For nearly 50 years Coppola has been recognized as one of America’s finest film directors and writers. He won an Academy Award for his co-authorship of Patton (1970) and was rightfully lauded for 1972’s Godfather (Best Picture). In 1974, The Godfather Part II, became the first sequel to win an Academy Award for Best Picture. Although many of his recent efforts have not been as successful, his reputation and his fortune were already assured.
In 1975, using proceeds from the Godfather films, Coppola and his wife Eleanor purchased a Napa Vineyard. And, for 45 years he has steadily developed The Family Coppola – ‘Movies, Wine, Food, Hideaways & Adventure’.
While the movie connection is interesting, the focus of this blog is wine. And, it is wine for which Coppola has been known for nearly as long as he has been writing and directing films.
He was a raised with the ready availability of wine that his grandfather, Agostino, made in the basement of his New York apartment building. Wine has long been at the center of Coppola’s life.
Interestingly, despite his long tenure and success in Napa/Sonoma wine Coppola has attracted nearly as much criticism for his wine efforts as he garnered for his unfortunate 1996 film, Jack. The film starred Robin Williams as 10-year-old trapped in a 40-year-old body. One film critic (in a retrospective of all Coppola films listing them from worst to best) noted that Jack underscored “all the ways in which Big (the wonderful Penny Marshall 1988 film starring Tom Hanks) could have gone horribly wrong”.
Coppola clearly took a misstep with Jack, and James Conaway believes that Coppola also took a misstep in his efforts to engage with Napa wine. Conaway is a critic of the industrial approach to wine, and the effect of wineries on the social and physical ecosystem of Napa and Sonoma. Conaway has referred to Coppola as a “lifestyle vintner. A ‘lifestyle vintner’ is by definition (according to Conaway)…somebody who wants to have the vintners’ life and let somebody else do all the work…”. Conaway’s criticism has been largely focused on Coppola’s efforts to restore Inglenook.
Inglenook’s twisted history is actually the story of many Napa wineries. Founded in 1879 by a prosperous Finnish sea captain Gustave Niebaum, the winery architect he hired pioneered the growth of gravity flow wineries. The winery prospered. Niebaum died in 1908 and during Prohibition the winery, as did most of its neighbors, closed. Inglenook reopened following Prohibition, and Niebaum’s great-nephew, John Daniel Jr. eventually took control of operations. By the mid-1940s Daniel’s Inglenook wines were considered amongst the best of Napa.
By the 1960s, however, rumors circulated that Inglenook was in financial difficulty. There were very strong indicators that the winery had not generated a profit since 1933. Equipment was aging and the Niebaum fortune was depleted. John Daniel was nearing 60 and there were no heirs interested in taking responsibility for Inglenook. In 1964 United Vintners, a financial descendant of Allied Grape Growers, and the producer of Italian Swiss Colony, purchased the Inglenook name, winery, and 94 acres (there were originally more than 1,600) of vineyards for $1.2 million.
United Vintners promised to maintain quality production, but abandoned that promise by 1967, and in 1969 United Vintners was purchased by Connecticut based Heublein Spirits. Focused on low cost-high profit production, Heublein grew Inglenook into a seven million case brand…most of it high alcohol and low cost. Any Inglenook association with quality wine ended during the Heublein era.
Heublein was eventually purchased by R.J. Reynolds and the wine assets were slowly sold off.
In 1975 Francis Food Coppola purchased more than 1,500 acres of the original Inglenook property and the Niebaum family home (but not the winery) for $2.2 million. He established Niebaum-Coppola, and in 1985 released a Cabernet focused blend named Rubicon under the hyphenated name.
In 1995 Coppola spend an additional $10 million to purchase the winery buildings. He immediately removed the industrial look of newer United Vintners and Hublein structures to restore Inglenook’s historic appearance. In 2011 Coppola spend millions more acquire the trademark rights to the Inglenook name. Coppola now controlled the property and name of a winery whose heritage only existed in rare bottles of cellared bottles from the 1940s and 50s. In 2009 a new Inglenook Cabernet was on the market.
Questions now swirled around Coppola’s intentions. Did he hope to recreate Inglenook in the image (and flavor profile of John Daniel), or did he hope to fashion a 21st Century Inglenook?
Critics of Coppola’s efforts are in agreement with former Acacia owner/winemaker Mike Richmond that Inglenook’s “time has passed”, and that the winery can never recover the mystique it enjoyed during the ‘glory days’ of John Daniel. However, John Daniel’s daughter Robin Lail, owner of Lail Vineyards and a friend of Coppola, believes that Coppola “set out to create a new Inglenook for the 21st Century and beyond”.
Coppola responds to both critics and supporters saying that, “Our goals are very similar to a European family that owns a first-growth. We are proud of it, we live here, we revel in this beauty. We consider ourselves custodians of it”. The goal, says Coppola, is not to make money, “I don’t get money out of Inglenook, I put money into it. I live off of the movies that I made 40 years ago”.
In 2011, Philippe Bascaules was named Inglenook’s General Manager. Bascaules splits his time between Napa and Bordeaux where he is the Director of First Growth Margaux. He says that his responsibility is to respect “the heritage…to preserve the elegance…and to evoke emotion”.
Bascaules hiring was not easily accepted by ‘Napa classicists’ who believe that Napa Cabernet should represent the efforts of Napa winemakers. Both Bascaules and Coppola have withstood the criticism and have served the legacy of Gustave Niebaum and John Daniels well. Inglenook Cabernet (generally in the $60+ range) have been consistently rated 90+ (the 2014 received a 94 from Robert Parker’s Wine Advocate).
Most of us, however, are not drinking $60 wines regularly, but we can still enjoy the ‘fruits’ of Coppola’s ‘Winemaker Lifestyle’. Beyond Inglenook, The Family Coppola now bottles more than 1.7 million cases of wine (mostly from California…although in 2018 they purchased Willamette Valley’s Vista Hills). Most of the 1.7 million cases are bottles that sell under $15. The Family Coppola winery is now the 15th largest in the United States.
Joy and I recently enjoyed a ‘cocktail hour’ with friends and neighbors and opened a few bottles of the Coppola Diamond Collection 2016 Claret. Aged for 14 months in French Oak, this Cabernet based (75% with 21% Petit Verdot and 4% Petite Sirah) offers a dark and rich Bordeaux style wine at a budget friendly price. And, for followers of ratings, the 2016 Claret earned 91 points from the Wine Enthusiast.
The Claret may not carry the prestige of Inglenook, but it does carry its ‘lifestyle winemakers’ determination to “make the resources and provide the direction”. Francis Ford Coppola may never turn a profit from his efforts to restore Napa’s Inglenook. However, he seems to be making money with Family Coppola wines based in Sonoma, vinified “in the same spirit as the wines of his grandfather…to share with friends and family”.
It is clear that even though Francis Ford Coppola ‘does not know how to make wine’, he knows how to direct the making of wine. He knows how to put the parts together…be it be a $60 Inglenook or a $15 Claret.
The ‘lifestyle vintner’ has invested 45 years and untold millions in his quest to restore Inglenook and grow Family Coppola. And, while he may only have a layman’s knowledge of the process by which wine is vinified, but he is very well steeped in the process by which classic wineries are preserved and new ones are developed.