![]() I remember showing it and offering a glass to the great Mr. That’s why I later thought we could make one in Napa, and I named it “Sofia” after our precocious little daughter. We didn’t have money and it was a far cheaper alternative to champagne. When we lived in Paris, where my second son Roman was born and I was working on a movie there, Ellie and I used to go to a neighborhood restaurant and always order a blanc des blancs. ![]() How did this occur to you and do you think you have a stubborn streak that made you go ahead with it? ![]() ![]() We make under 2,000 cases.įrancis Ford Coppola Winery brought many innovations to the wine industry and many firsts. Upon being told that a non-champagne blancs des blancs would never sell, you did it anyway. so when it came to making our best wine we called it Archimedes. You know, Archimedes was the one who first said “Eureka!” My grandfather died from a hepatitis epidemic in the 1920s. My grandfather named my eldest uncle Archimedes because he was a great admirer of his mind. It was a name our family gave to the eldest son. Coppola Family WineryĪrchimedes turned out to be a premium wine. With it came about a 100 acres of premium Napa vineyards-originally they were going to build 60 homes on the hillside-but we bought it, and soon many winemakers were coming by to offer to lease those vineyards, and I said to Eleanor, “Why don’t we just keep those grapes and make wine ourselves?” And she said, “What do you know about how to make wine?” to which I replied, “Nothing, but neither do I know how to make movies, but that hasn’t stopped me.” And so that’s how I found myself in the wine business.Īrchimedes is Coppola Family Winery's most expensive premium red wine made in the Bordeaux style. Later in my life, when finally I had earned a little money, I suggested to my wife that we buy a summer cottage in the Napa Valley, hopefully with a few grapevines, and the agent showing us these modest possibilities said, “This isn’t for you, but the Niebaum estate is being auctioned and that was once part of the great Inglenook, the most beautiful wine estate in the world, and this would be a chance to see it.” So we said “sure” and went to see it, but to behold it was to wish it could be yours, and eventually that wish, after the success of The Godfather came true. Those childhood stories made winemaking sound like so much fun. We loved hearing those stories sitting around the table where we kids were allowed a little wine mixed with 7 Up.ĭid you get serious about wine at some point in his life? Imagine a single orange divided up between seven boys! There were elaborate schemes of lowering the youngest in a basket on a rope into the cellar where the grapes were kept, and as the old man approached letting go, with the littlest brother crashing into them. But I also heard great stories my uncles told me about the days during Prohibition, when the government allowed families accustomed to drinking wine with food, to make two barrels of wine in their homes. My grandfather had seven sons and expected them to help out in making this home wine, but the boys were more anxious to steal the grapes, because fresh fruit was a luxury and they were quite poor. Did your family drink wine when you were a child?Īs an Italian-American, I confess I never saw a dinner table that didn’t have wine on it.
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