A Sit Down With Francis Ford Coppola

Godfather director Francis Ford Coppola is best known for his glittering filmmaking career, but his second passion is his top-rated California winery, Inglenook. Earlier this week our Head of Investment and Co-founder Daniel Walker and Oeno Director Daniel Carnio had the pleasure of sitting down with the great man himself for a tasting of his outstanding Inglenook Rubicon wines.

Coppola’s involvement with Inglenook dates back to the 1970s when he and his wife purchased the estate with profits from The Godfather films, but the property’s origins date right back to the 1870s when Finnish sea captain Gustave Niebaum bought 500 acres of farmland to be his base on dry land. Niebaum celebrated the first Inglenook vintage soon after in 1882 and the estate remained in the Niebaum family until the 1960s.

During the afternoon guests were treated to a tasting of five Rubicon vintages, the estate’s iconic Bordeaux-style red wine which was first made in 1978 and named after Julius Caesar’s fated river crossing which marked the point of no return. 

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