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| Feature |
Reel Risks
Elizabeth Harris
11/01/2007
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During that lean period, Coppola
began making wine. In 1975, he and his wife, Eleanor, bought the legendary
California vineyard Inglenook in Napa Valley. They acquired the 1,560-acre
property and used it as a summer retreat. Originally, Coppola had a more modest
home in mind than the estate that Gustave Niebaum built in the 1880s, planted
with 125 acres of Cabernet grapes and located in the prized Rutherford
winemaking region. But the land, the grapes and the history drew him in. Growing
up on Long Island in the 1940s and ’50s, Coppola always intended to make some
homemade wine. The stories his uncles and father told about how Italian families
made wine during Prohibition fascinated him. They brought over California
grapes, allotting a share to each patriarch for table wine. As always, he went
with his gut. "I’m the opposite of what you would call uptight," he says. "I
don’t worry about decisions. I make quick decisions if they feel right to
me."
 | FRANCIS FORD Coppola (right) on the set of Youth Without Youth. (Photograph by Cos Aelenei/courtesy Sony Pictures Classics.) |
When One From the
Heart decimated his finances, Coppola’s life
took a new turn. "Let’s make wine," he told Eleanor. She rolled her eyes at the
suggestion. Borrowing $40,000 from his mother to buy equipment, they hired a
neighbor as winemaker. They got lucky. One of the biggest challenges new
vintners face is creating a track record—storing the wine, bottling it and
selling it requires a long lead time and a good 10 years before the vineyard
produces income, according to Coppola. They bottled their first Rubicon in 1985,
after seven years in the cask.
"I never thought anything of it really becoming a business,"
Coppola says. "It had 100 acres of these very fine grapes that had once been
part of that Inglenook tradition, and everybody wanted to buy them and have
contracts for them. And at one point, I said, ‘Well, gee, if everybody thinks
these grapes are so good, why don’t we make wine ourselves?’"
While the company has never disclosed the number of cases of
wine produced, it generated an estimated 800,000 cases in U.S. sales in 2006 and
ranked 18th among U.S. wine companies, according to Wine Business Monthly. The Coppolas bought adjoining property as it came up for sale to reunite
the former Inglenook land. In 1995, they acquired an additional 94 acres and a
chateau. They built the winery and reintroduced wine-making to the Inglenook
property in 2002. The following year, they created a 16,000-square-foot wine
cave.
However, as the company expanded, Coppola became concerned that
his range of interests might overpower the brand. For example, he worried that
he might confuse buyers by keeping his premium wine, selling for more than $100
a bottle, and his more popular wines, the least expensive priced at $10 a
bottle, under the same label. He also wanted the flexibility to experiment with
new ideas—like wine in self-sealed individual glasses, perfect for picnics or
for selling at sports stadiums, he believes. Coppola struggled with the notion
of keeping his name on the prized Inglenook wine, originally wanting to maintain
the Niebaum-Coppola identity. But in January 2006, he split the business into
two separate companies. And while he found it difficult, he thought it was the
right decision to remove his name and simply call it Rubicon Estate to
distinguish the premium wines. Now, Francis Coppola Presents encompasses the
more popular wines, as well as the other businesses, such as Mammarella foods,
his international luxury resorts like Blancaneaux Lodge and Turtle Inn in Belize
and restaurants in San Francisco and Palo Alto.
"The wines are good quality and there has been supreme effort
made to improve on the labels over time," says Peter Meltzer, the auction
correspondent for Wine Spectator
and author of Keys to the Cellar: Strategies and Secrets of Wine
Collecting. While the Coppola wines have not
yet reached the status of California cult wines like Harlan Estate or Screaming
Eagle, this wasn’t just a vanity investment, Meltzer says. "They’re really
serious."
And demand is growing for Rubicon vintages at auction; recent prices include
a 1987 fetching $69 a bottle and a 1994 hitting $94.
Ironically, as Coppola returns to filmmaking, his wine industry
contacts question why films are distracting him from wine-making. In the
beginning, Coppola recalls his filmmaking friends believed he wasted his talent
with wine. "They really did say, ‘Francis, you’re a filmmaker. You made one of
the most successful movies ever made. Why are you fooling around with this wine
company? Get out of that and put all your energy into film,’" he remembers.
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