I read an article in the June issue of Wine Spectator and thought that I would share this article with my fellow Godfather fanatics :

Plans Unveiled For Francis Ford Coppola’s New Sonoma Winery



Francis Ford Coppola has taken time off from one big project—the filming of his new movie, Youth Without Youth, set in Romania—and is on to the next.

Tonight, (April 7, 2005), the film maker-turned-vintner will celebrate his 67th birthday and introduce his new winery, located at the former Chateau Souverain facility in Geyserville, by hosting a party for 2,000 Sonomans.

The director will host a birthday bash at the future tourist destination in Alexander Valley.

The yet-to-be-named winery (Coppola is seeking suggestions) will be the alter ego of his Rubicon Estate (known until this year as Niebaum-Coppola) in Napa Valley. While Rubicon pays tribute to the rich heritage of Inglenook, one of Napa's legendary estates, the new winery in Sonoma will carry a simpler message about celebrating life.

"I'm a movie director, so I have to have a theme," Coppola said in an interview on Thursday. "The theme for the Sonoma property is life. I want to create a happy Italian family feeling."

The winery, which is being remodeled, is intended to be a tourist destination in scenic Alexander Valley, with a restaurant and tasting room. The featured wines, which are distributed nationally, will be the Francis Coppola Diamond Series of varietals, Rosso and Bianco, Sofia sparkling wines and a Director's Reserve. The winery will also house much of the film memorabilia once displayed at Rubicon, including costumes and props from Coppola's movies, such as The Godfather, Bram Stoker's Dracula and Tucker.


"I never intended to have a Hollywood museum at what I still call Inglenook," said Coppola. "My goal is to do what Inglenook would have done if it hadn't been separated."
Inglenook was founded in 1879 by Gustave Niebaum, a Finnish sea captain. Under John Daniel Jr., it set the gold standard for Napa Valley Cabernet, with a string of great Cabernets dating from the late 1930s to the early 1960s. But in the 1960s, Daniel split up the estate, selling Inglenook to the company that became Heublein, which ended up mass marketing jug wines under the Inglenook Navalle label.

Francis and Eleanor Coppola moved to Rutherford in the mid-1970s, purchased part of the old estate, moved into the house built by Neibaum and launched Neibaum-Coppola Winery. Wanting to reunite the historic property, they later acquired the Inglenook winery. Today they own 250 acres in vines around the chateau.

But over the years, Niebaum-Coppola became a victim of its own success, expanding into a series of wines that departed from Coppola's original goal of a single-wine estate winery. "When I started I had no idea [my wines] would become a big national brand," he said, adding that after nearly 30 years in the business, "I still haven't made a nickel."

Rubicon's popularity reached the point where Coppola's staff couldn't handle the crowds. On weekends, the tasting room and winery grounds were packed with tourists. "Frankly, crowd control became a problem," he said.

He was also concerned that the growth of his more popularly priced wines were cutting into the reputation of Rubicon, the flagship red Bordeaux-style blend made from the estate vineyard. Sales of non-estate wines paid the bills, Coppola said, including those for expensive vineyard acquisitions, a winery renovation and caves for barrel aging. But he was concerned that visitors were missing the meaning of Rubicon, modeled after the Bordeaux first-growths.

Renamed as Rubicon Estate, the Napa winery will now focus exclusively on estate-grown wines, including Rubicon, Cask Cabernet, the Blancaneaux white blend, Edizone Pennino Zinfandel and R.C. Reserve (named after his son Roman Coppola), all under the direction of winemaker Scott McLeod. A new management team is headed by master sommelier Larry Stone. Coppola says the goal is to produce a total of 20,000 cases of wine.

Making the new Sonoma winery tourist-oriented is important to Coppola. "I'm very anxious to make Sonoma wine," he said, but he intends to stick with one strategy. "I have one philosophy about business," he said. "I've always wanted to give the public value."

He also likes the opportunity to be more innovative at the new winery, both in the wines it produces and in the packaging it uses.

Known for his extravagant bashes, the event tonight is intended as an open house to show his Sonoma neighbors how Coppola likes to party.

After tonight, Coppola will resume work on Youth Without Youth, an adaptation of a novel by Romanian author Mircea Eliade. The film stars Tim Roth, who plays Dominic Matei, a professor whose life changes after a cataclysmic incident during the dark years prior to World War II.

"I'm at the point in my life where I deal with questions [in movies] I don't know the answer to and hope I'll find the answer by doing the film," Coppola said.
The director spent most of the past year working on location in Bucharest, where he says he took a liking to Romanian wines. "I still drink wine with every meal," he said, "and I always drink the [local] wines where I am."

Source: “Francis Ford Coppola Unveils Plans for His New Sonoma Winery,” James Laube, Wine Spectator.

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Don Cardi

The wine should be named "Revenge". Its best served cold. :rolleyes:

This says Gangster Convention 2007 all over it... has our time finally come, on the West Coast???

Maybe at the same time you can also go to some non-crap wineries too... :p Sorry, Francis.

Dunno. Do they have a Shula's Steakhouse out there?

I don't know about Sonoma, but there's one in Los Angeles... you guys can fly into LAX, we'll go to Shula's, and then drive up to Sonoma. See? I can fix any problem.

Where is Geyersville???? Northern CA I assume????

Sounds nice. I wonder if there will be GF items there? That'd be a nice "family" atmosphere. :p

As you all know, I was at the Niebaum Coppola estate a couple years ago. First time I'd ever had been to a wine tasting.


TIS

The wine should be named "Revenge". Its best served cold. :rolleyes: [/b][/quote]That was very droll, SC!
Chateau Souverain made some very decent Cabs and Zins in its heyday. We stopped there 20 years ago and had a very nice (gratis) tasting. Heublein ran Inglenook into the ground.
FFC's Rosso is a good, everyday red, an excellent value. He's got more than enough competition for his higher-end wines. But my view is: a good wine is a wine that you think is good, a bad wine is one you think is bad. No one can make up your mind or live in your mouth . Anyway, America has truly become a buyer's market for wine. Everyone in the world who wants to sell wine wants to sell it here. Choices are unlimited, and values can be found everywhere.
I've been drinking wine since the early Sixties. I used to buy only French and German (with a smattering of Italian) wines because nothing else came close. Today I seldom buy French or German because there's no need to, when you can choose from a gigantic variety of American,Australian, Spanish, Chilean, Argentine, etc., wines that are mostly terrific values. French, German and some northern Italian wines are still the best in the world. But I always say that a $200 bottle of wine doesn't necessarily taste 20 times better than a $10 bottle.

Even if it did taste 20 times better - even if it tasted 40 times better - you can get such good wine for $10 that I'd rather have twenty $10 bottles than one $200 bottle.

Well...maybe ten $20 bottles anyway.

I think the biggest improvment in quality comes in that price range: $10 to $20.

Once I get past $20 a bottle I usually can't tell the difference compared to the higher priced wines, where I can with a $10 wine vs. a $20 wine.

Which reminds me....I'm bringing a bottle of Australian wine to dinner on the 7th.

I figure there will be plenty of the Italian stuff.



Apple

There will be GF memorabilia along with some items from his other movies.


Don Cardi

I was planning on a nice chianti for the 7th - to go with the fava beans and liver (Plaw almost gagged when I ordered liver when dining out with him once).

I have to concur that liver is extremely difficult to be near...let alone eat.

I think it was Johnny Carson who always used to say that you can try & hide it all you want...under bacon, mushrooms, sauteed onions...it's still liver and it's STILL disgusting.

Apple

Liver? Oh boy! Liver is what our grandmothers forced us to eat when we were bad! YUK!


Don Cardi

Perhaps it's because I was always anemic, and my mother fed me liver as often as possible as a child, but I love liver of all kinds: calves liver, chicken liver, even turkey liver. Mr. Babe is famous for the turkey pate` he makes every Thanksgiving. And he likes liver, too. Perhaps that's why we've lasted together all these years!

Oh-oh! Now I'll have to rethink the wine I was planning to bring to the dinner on the 7th. :rolleyes:

Nobody has a homemade wine they can bring? In New York/New Jersey, not one of you crush-a da grape in the last couple of years?

Also, Mr. Coppola reminisces and observes...

Quote:

"When I started I had no idea [my wines] would become a big national brand," he said, adding that after nearly 30 years in the business, "I still haven't made a nickel."

Which brings to mind the running joke in Napa or thereabouts...

Q. How do you make a million dollars making wine?

A. Start with TWO million.

tony b.

Yes, I can think of a lot safer and easier ways to make money than to start a winery. First you have to lay out a zillion dollars for land, equipment, etc. Then you have to plant, hope the vines grow, and if they do, let them produce and mature for several years before the grapes are fit to harvest and make wine. Then you have to market your wine in an incredibly crowded market. Definitely a long, hard, risky pull.