For Coppola, Winemaking Is Big Business

NEW YORK — When five-time Oscar-winning filmmaker Francis Ford Coppola bought one of the Napa Valley’s most venerable properties and proclaimed his intention “to make a little wine,” locals took him for another celebrity dilettante.

Coppola rewrote the script and expanded the cast. He began by putting down roots in the heart of the valley, at the Niebaum estate, formerly owned by Gustave Niebaum, the immigrant founder of the Inglenook winery.

“I moved there with my family around 1975, amongst the vines, and my three little kids went to school there,” Coppola said.

“In the ‘60s, lots of the great estates were divided as families sold them, and that happened to the queen of the valley--the Inglenook Estate, which was founded in 1879. We bought the home part and the land, not including the business.”

Wine became big business for the filmmaker, who eventually purchased all the original properties of the estate. “We went from being a ‘boutique’ winery in small amounts, to a pretty sizable business offering a whole family of wines,” he said.

Initially, Coppola limited his production to a premium quality red wine dubbed “Rubicon,” conceived along classic French lines.

“Back in the ‘70s, when all the $30-a-bottle premium wines were varietals, we proposed to do a Bordeaux-style wine, mainly Cabernet Sauvignon, with lesser amounts of Cabernet Franc and Merlot, for which we also had wonderful vineyards,” he said.

Coppola is proud of Rubicon. “It’s like a great Saint Julien. A deep color, it takes you through a number of experiences as you drink it; it’s our answer to the great wines of the world. I enjoy it with steak, or any meal that has the intensity of flavor that can stay with it, and I like it with Italian food . . . say pasta.”

In their quest to extract the estate’s maximum potential, Coppola and his 34-year-old winemaker, Scott McLeod, have steadily increased the proportion of Cabernet Sauvignon in the Rubicon blend, from 65% in the mid ‘80s to about 92%.

Wine Spectator magazine’s staff tasted barrel samples of the 1995 Rubicon, which won’t be available before 1999. It was provisionally rated 90 to 94 on the magazine’s 100-point quality scale, and earlier vintages have garnered similar acclaim.

“Although we acquired another 100 acres planted in Cabernet, bringing our total to about 225 acres, we’re not going to produce much more Rubicon. It will still be in the 10,000 [cases] or less category,” Coppola said.

“We want Rubicon to represent our very best, and obviously, with a premium wine, there are limitations because you select only those grapes meeting the highest standards.”

The plan is to supplement Rubicon with Cabernet Franc, Merlot, Zinfandel, and a new product, which Coppola described as “a cask Cabernet done in the old Inglenook California style.”

New York Times columnist Frank Prial recently recommended Niebaum-Coppola’s Cabernet Franc for holiday meals, praising it as “a most pleasant wine. Somewhere between a lush Cabernet and a soft Merlot, it has a spicy bouquet and good tannins.”

Edizione Pennino, the estate’s award-winning Zinfandel, is named for the filmmaker’s maternal grandfather. It all started with an Italian mother’s complaint to her son, Coppola said.

“My mother constantly bugged me, saying ‘Francis, you’re half Pennino; when are you going to have Vino Pennino?’ So we bottled some Zinfandel, using the label from my grandfather’s music publishing company, Edizione Pennino. It’s a full-bodied late-harvest Zinfandel, and it made quite a hit.”

His latest releases, Coppola Bianco and Rosso, were produced in response to a shortage of his estate-grown wines, Coppola said.

“We needed a supply of which we could be assured until the new vines came in, because demand was increasing. Also, I wanted to make an everyday wine like I remember when I was a kid, not costly and just a fruity, delicious glass of California wine, very good with Italian food. It’s the wine I drink normally, reserving the Rubicon and the other premium wines for special occasions,” Coppola said.

Will Coppola’s chief interests ever converge? If someone were to script a compelling wine saga worthy of cinematic treatment, he’d take a good look, he said.

“The wine country has some great, great stories, of the most extraordinary families, like the Gallos and the Mondavis. Then there’s Frank Loesser’s ‘Most Happy Fella,’ which takes place in the Napa Valley, if we could ever find someone to sing that role. Maybe I’ll do it.”