Case Study Tend
Francis Ford Coppola's Inglenook Wine Capstone
How to finish the sentence “My heart belongs to…”
“I’ve done so many interesting things in my life, but what I’m most proud of is saving Inglenook and making it beautiful again. I’m prouder of that than anything I’ve done.” —Francis Ford Coppola
Opening Context
What happens when one of the greatest filmmakers of all time gives his heart to something other than cinema?
This case study sits between the Signs You Need a Capstone and Action chapters for a reason. It’s about devotion—across decades, through chaos, and well beyond commercial logic. Francis Ford Coppola, famed for his keystone dent in the world, his filmmaking career with the likes of The Godfather and Apocalypse Now, has quietly spent more than forty years restoring a piece of American history: Inglenook, one of Napa Valley’s oldest and most revered wine estates. His story is a masterclass in love-led ambition. A Capstone project that transcends art, family, and agriculture.
Introduction
Francis Ford Coppola is undoubtedly one of the greatest filmmakers of all time. But you might not know that he has been nurturing a Capstone for over forty years. Piece by piece—and often using the profits from his films—Francis resurrected an American treasure: the Inglenook Wine Estate in the heart of Napa Valley.
We spoke to Francis during the coronavirus lockdown of 2020. Twenty-six members of his family were all together staying at Inglenook. Francis, his wife, kids and grandchildren, all sheltering in place.
This Capstone is about a combination of putting beautiful things back together, the importance of family, the joy of drinking wine, and the commitment to preserving greatness.
Cornerstone Influence
Francis was born into a family of Italian immigrant ancestry, spending his childhood in Queens in New York City. His earliest memories are of wine being an integral part of the family meals:
“Growing up I never saw a dinner table without a glass of wine on it.”
In 1966, after graduating from film school, Francis went to Paris to work on a movie called Is Paris Burning? Someone gave him a glass of Romanée-Conti and it stopped him in his tracks. He couldn’t believe wine—the drink he had grown up drinking—could taste like this.
“It was heavenly,” he later recalled.
Francis immersed himself in the culture and absorbed as much wine knowledge as he could whilst in France.
A few years later, he found himself at a casino in Reno playing baccarat. He started with $400, won $30,000… and spent it all on Romanée-Conti…
In 1969, he snubbed the studio system and built a ‘deviant’ studio called American Zoetrope with a little-known graduate fresh out of film school. His name was George Lucas. The studio was an early adopter of digital filmmaking and was located in a warehouse in San Francisco—importantly, just an hour south of Napa Valley.
Keystone Influence
In 1970, Francis began writing the screenplay for The Godfather with the novel’s author, Mario Puzo. Production began shortly afterwards. At the time, Francis was an unproven 32-year-old directing only his second big movie.
He was under constant pressure from the studio throughout the film’s production. He famously had a big argument with the President of Paramount about casting Marlon Brando as Vito Corleone. Brando was notoriously difficult to work with—a fact my grandfather would happily also confirm after working with him on the Superman film. The studio bosses were also not convinced by Brando’s methods, especially the voice. But, as Brando later explained:
“Powerful people don’t need to shout.”
Francis’ vision prevailed and the film was nominated for eleven Academy Awards, winning three of them. He followed this up with The Godfather Part II—considered by many to be the greatest film of all time—and The Conversation and Apocalypse Now, both of which won the Palme d’Or at Cannes.
Francis had reached the top of his game, confirmed as one of the art form’s top talents. His career has seen him produce or executive produce more than 50 motion pictures. Films produced through his company, American Zoetrope, have earned a remarkable 63 Academy Award nominations and 15 Oscars.
Cinematographer Bill Butler: “I love working with Coppola because he is heavy. The things he puts on the screens are heavyweight ideas.”
Fierce independence and a willingness to take great personal, financial, and artistic risks in the interest of storytelling define Francis’s filmmaking career. Two things he said summarise his approach well:
“The things you get fired for when you are young, you end up getting a lifetime achievement award for later in life.”
“Anything you build on a large scale or with intense passion invites chaos.”
As a writer, director, producer, and technological pioneer, Coppola has created a body of work that has helped to shape contemporary American cinema. He has been making films for more than fifty years. But many don’t know that he has also been making wine for over forty years.
Capstone
In 1879, a former Finnish sea captain called Gustave Niebaum arrived in Rutherford, California, in the heart of Napa Valley. His mission, naming it Inglenook, was to build a wine estate that would rival Europe’s finest.
After a chequered history, including the winery shutting down during prohibition, the estate regained its original reputation for producing fine wine under the Inglenook name during the 1940s. The estate was passed on to Niebaum’s grandnephew, John Daniel Jr. He died in 1970 and his wife decided to sell the estate, convinced that winemaking was not a suitable career for her two daughters.
In 1975, using the proceeds from the first Godfather film, Francis and his family purchased Niebaum’s former home.
In 1976, the filming of Apocalypse Now began to hit serious problems. The shoot was difficult, way over schedule, and starting to bleed money. Francis had put significant sums of his own money into the project and later admitted he was worried he wouldn’t be able to hold onto the wine estate.
Inglenook’s first vintage under the Coppola family came in 1977. Grapes were stomped barefoot by Francis, his wife, and children. Every year since, the family has a harvest party to continue the tradition.
By 1978, Rubicon—a red Bordeaux-style blend—was released after years of aging in French oak and bottle. A wine of intensity and ambition, it was a success.
His Capstone, running alongside filmmaking, has been forty years of rebuilding the Inglenook estate back to its original glory:
“I like putting things back together, not taking things apart.”
In 1990, Wine Spectator gave the 1941 Inglenook Cabernet Sauvignon a perfect 100 points, naming it one of the greatest wines of the century.
By 1995, after Bram Stoker’s Dracula success, Coppola was able to purchase the original Chateau—uniting it with the vineyard after three decades apart. In 2002, he added the neighbouring J.J. Cohn property.
Inglenook was reborn.
The name Rubicon was chosen for its historic meaning—Caesar’s crossing of the Rubicon, the point of no return.
“It denoted a permanent decision. A great risk. A bold move. A new beginning,” said Francis.
The final puzzle piece came in 2011, when Coppola reacquired the rights to the Inglenook trademark—for more than the price of the entire estate. The name mattered.
He brought in Philippe Bascaules from Château Margaux to oversee every vintage, aligning world-class winemaking with the original vision. Inglenook is similar in size to Château Margaux and both are Bordeaux blends, so one can see the fit in the casting. Both Francis and Philippe realise they are continuing the 130-year-old dream to produce wines at Inglenook to rival the best in Europe.
In talking to Philippe, he emphasised the importance of understanding the vision of the owner. His role is to do everything to achieve that vision. The key values of the Capstone being:
Keep Inglenook at the top table of the world’s best wines.
Make just enough wine to be able to share with the world, so that Inglenook wine can be enjoyed all over the world.
Produce elegant wine that is able to age. For Philippe, that’s about being able to avoid extremes such as overripe or underripe grapes in order to get signature balance and complexity.
Wine that is drinkable in good quantities. Francis believes wine is meant to be drunk. Philippe’s benchmark is whether he can enjoy a whole bottle in an evening and feel fine the next day.
Inglenook is the reason Rutherford is considered one of the sweet spot wine regions of the world. In April 2002, the entire 200 acres of the vineyard was certified organic—a process that took several years.
The estate now has 120 parcels of wine and is building an underground labyrinth that houses 122 discreet underground stainless-steel fermenting tanks, enabling each parcel of wine to be kept separate during fermentation. This will be a unique set-up, allowing Inglenook to understand and trial new processes by being able to explore and increase understanding of the different nuanced areas of growing across the estate. This is yet another heavyweight commitment from Francis to his Capstone.
According to Francis: “I believe there is no more beautiful winery in the world. For me, no other estate comes close in size, dimension and beauty.”
5 Elements Of His Formula
1. “It’s all part of the same production.”
‘Our family putting on a show,’ says Francis. Wine. Film. Family. Music. Travel. It’s all a connected story. Pennino Zinfandel honours his composer grandfather, whose song titles are printed on corks. Blancaneaux, the flagship white, is named after the family’s Belize resort. At the Chateau’s reopening gala, a 65-piece orchestra played a score composed by his father.
2. “It’s personal, not business.”
In contrast to The Godfather’s line—“It’s not personal, it’s strictly business”—Coppola’s Capstone flips that script (side note… Francis shared with us that all of The Godfather sayings came from Mario Puzo’s mother, not any member of the mafia!).
“If it’s a wine, we really drink it. If it’s a hotel, we stay there. We get fully involved. I’m there digging with the sandflies.”
The project is an authentic and integral part of his life.
3. “Full commitment.”
Francis is dedicated to “whatever it requires to make Inglenook 0.5% better each year. Our family will move mountains to achieve that. We are 100% devoted to the greatness of the Estate.”
“Inglenook is priceless, there is no price we would even blink at. It will remain in the family as long as I can imagine. If there were three billionaires—Bezos, Gates and Ellison—and they came together and offered us all they had for the estate, it would be a no. No at any price.”
“Our goal has always been to make one of the world's great wines. You don’t get involved with an estate like this without that as your goal.”
4. “Put things back together.”
Francis believes America neglects its treasures.
"In America, so few things that are broken apart are ever put back together.”
Francis believes it’s a huge waste that some of the great American institutions are under threat due to economic factors. He pushes the importance of saving some of the great American institutions, such as a 150-year-old wine estate, in order to uphold and preserve high standards.
5. “Enjoy trying.”
According to Francis: “I used to write my ‘to-do’ list on an envelope. I don’t do that anymore. I now write down a ‘to-enjoy’ list. I try to only think pleasant thoughts, of which there are so many. I live in a beautiful place and one of my favourite things is to wonder at the view and this natural place and all the animals—I'm like Snow White!”
“Let’s be realistic. Just before you die you don’t want to say, ‘Oh I wish I’d done this, I wish I’d done that.’ I got to see my kids, I got to be in the movie business, I got to make wine. I want to be so busy saying all the things I did that, when I die, I won’t notice it.”
“You can’t call it risk? It’s all opportunity. What’s the point in not trying? Take the chance to live and really live.”
When comparing winemaking and film directing:
“The two professions are almost the same. Each depends on source material and takes a lot of time to perfect. The big difference is that today’s winemakers still worry about quality.”
Final Anecdote
Apocalypse Now had absorbed most of Francis’s cash and the purchase price didn’t include the wine in the cellars, left behind by the Wine Group in the Niebaum mansion. Even though it wasn’t his, every now and then he would help himself to a 100-year-old bottle...
Francis: “One day there was a knock at the door, and it was new neighbour Robert Mondavi and his wife to welcome Eleanor and I to Napa and congratulate us on our purchase. Mondavi gave me the confidence in the Bordeaux blend in Napa and to go on the mission to rebuild the estate.”
“I thought I’d better make an effort and asked Robert if he wanted to try some wine. He said sure.”
“So, I went down to the basement and took another bottle I wasn’t supposed to… It was an Inglenook 1880…”
So, how do you finish the sentence ‘my heart belongs to…’?
If you're Francis Ford Coppola, the answer isn’t The Godfather, or Apocalypse Now. It’s not even filmmaking. It’s Inglenook. And that is what makes it a Capstone.