SOURCE: ANSA - THE MAESTRO OF AMERICAN CINEMA FRANCIS FORD COPPOLA “STEALS” PHILIPPE BASCAULES, GURU OF CHATEAU MARGAUX WINE FROM FRANCE, WITH AN “OFFER THAT HE CANNOT REFUSE”: HEAD OF RUBICON ESTATE IN NAPA VALLEY

It’s the classic “offer you can’t refuse”: Francis Ford Coppola, one of the maestros of international cinema, who for years now has betrayed cinema for wine, has lured Philippe Bascaules, one of the most respected creators of French wines, to California in what the British newspaper “The Independent” called an “act of reverse imperialism that will make more than one mustache curl up on the hills of Bordeaux”, but that the director of “The Godfather” himself has hailed as “a dream come true”.

Bascaules, who will take the reins as Manager of the vineyards in Napa Valley in time for the 2011 harvest, will help strengthen the Rubicon Estate. The historic estate near the village of Rutherford that the director of “Apocalypse Now” has owned for more than 30 years, now boasts the most recent and dynamic winery, Francis Ford Coppola Winery.

The French winemaker is an agricultural engineer who for two decades worked for one of the most prestigious wines in France, Château Margaux. In the last eleven years he was the manager, producing the most expensive Bordeaux in the world. It doesn’t matter that he speaks very little English: “I admire people of few words. Philippe is not a talker but he knows what he’s doing”, said the director. Coppola’s wines in the United States are synonymous with Zinfandel and Merlot: reliable, but for all budgets. By bringing Bascaules on board, Coppola is clearly aiming at achieving a much higher-end market and the final goal is to “produce the best wines of the Old World in the United States of America”.

The arrival of the French winemaker coincides with the purchase of the historic Inglenook vineyards (today Coppola’s renovated Rubicon Estate, ed). Inglenook farm was founded in 1879 by a Finnish sea captain and, in the 40’s and 50’s after the end of Prohibition, produced some of the best wines in America. Since then, however, the Inglenook Vineyards has gone downhill and now a magnum bottle of Zinfandel sells for just a few dollars: “the brand has been damaged, but there are still people who pay tens of thousands of dollars for previous years’ vintages. And this is the goal to which we must return”, said Coppola, who had begun purchasing plots of Inglenook in 1975, with part of the profits from his film “The Godfather”. The director has now bought the Inglenook label from the Wine Group consortium and plans to put it on the bottles, instead of his name.