WEALTH

META
The outsider’s view
NAME
Francis Ford Coppola
BORN
1939
FILMS
38, including The Great
Gatsby (1974), American
Graffiti and The Virgin
Suicides (producer), and
Rumble Fish
ACADEMY AWARDS
8
WINE AWARDS
USA Wine Producer of
the Year award 2011
APOCALYPSE WOW: COPPOLA DIRECTS WINE
Film director and producer Francis Ford Coppola is
also the most famous vintner in California’s Napa Valley
His name is still more internationally famed for
cinema than wine, but the wealth of Francis Ford
Coppola derives more from his work as a vintner
than filmmaker. The legendary director of Apocalypse Now
and The Godfather trilogy is now the biggest single owner of
wineries in California, after first purchasing a portion of
the historic Inglenook estate in the Napa Valley in 1975.
Since then, it has been his passion not only to create
great wine, but to resurrect the renowned vineyards. The
estate was founded in 1879 by Gustave Niebaum, a Finnish
sea captain, and its cabernet wines played a prominent role
in helping define Napa as one of the great wine regions of
the world.
Christie’s rates Inglenook’s 1941 vintage alongside the
1945 Mouton-Rothschild and 1900 Margaux as “some of the
most celebrated, most valuable and longest-lived Cabernet-
Sauvignon-based wines in the world today.”
After purchasing the former home of Niebaum, Coppola
produced his first vintage in 1977, with his family stomping
out the grapes barefoot – a tradition that has continued at
the annual harvest party. The Rubicon and Cask cabernets
produced at Inglenook are considered among an
international elite, commanding upwards of $200 a bottle.
Even in the early years, Coppola said in an interview
for PROJECT M, “the dream of uniting Inglenook burned
within me.” That task proved to be a puzzle. The success of
the film Bram Stoker’s Dracula in the 1990s allowed him to
Francis and Eleanor
Coppola purchased
the Inglenook wine
estate in 1975 and
have spent over 40
years restoring
its heritage
significantly enlarge the estate and move to include
mass-market wines.
In 1995, Coppola brought back the remaining vineyards
and original chateau for $10 million. Flicking through press
clippings about Niebaum and Inglenook’s often turbulent
history, Coppola explains, “I always wanted to make one of
the world’s great wines, and I knew Inglenook had before,
and could again.”
Coppola put the final piece in place when he brought
the iconic Inglenook trademark in 2011. This allowed him
to sell his wines under the original name, completing a
36-year restoration of the estate.
Today, Coppola has almost $100 million invested in the
business. The grapes are entirely organically grown and the
wines have a reputation that perhaps even exceeds that of
Inglenook’s early years. On the commercial side, they are
not performing badly, either. The Coppola Diamond range
is one of the most widely sold wines in US restaurants.
For those who miss the connection between his life’s
two passions, Coppola happily explains that “winemaking
and filmmaking are two of California’s great art forms.”
62 • Allianz