The Francis Ford Coppola Winery, a prominent figure in the American wine industry, offers wines across various price points, available in supermarkets, boutique shops, and Michelin-starred restaurants. The winery blends New World and Old World techniques to maintain consistency in their products. Chief winemaker Corey Beck oversees the operation, ensuring grapes for high-end wines are handpicked and vines are cultivated under controlled stress for flavor density. The winemaking process involves careful timing of grape picking, minimal water usage for vine growth, and strategic canopy management to protect against heat while ensuring adequate light penetration for color development.
The harvested grapes undergo crushing and fermentation, with senior winemaker Andrea Card monitoring the process and tasting the wine multiple times daily to ensure quality. The wine is then aged in toasted oak barrels to achieve the desired flavor profile through secondary fermentation. Finally, the wine is bottled, with Coppola's claret being their most popular product. The bottling process includes precise filling, corking, and unique packaging with a gold net applied by specially designed machinery.
Overall, the winery's meticulous approach from grape cultivation to bottling ensures a high-quality product that appeals to diverse markets and maintains the reputation of its famous founder.
1. The Francis Ford Coppola Winery is an iconic winery in the American wine industry.
2. The winery produces wines in nearly every price point, from supermarket to Michelin-starred restaurants.
3. The winery is located in Geyserville, California, in the Alexander Valley.
4. Chief winemaker Corey Beck has been in charge of the operation since the early 1990s.
5. The winery has a reserve vineyard where grapes are hand-picked for higher-end wines.
6. The vines in the reserve vineyard were planted in the mid-1980s.
7. The winery uses a technique called "canopy management" to control the amount of sunlight the grapes receive.
8. The winery uses a 10-day window to pick the grapes at the optimal time.
9. The grapes are grown on soil that is designed to stress the vines, which helps to create more flavor-dense grapes.
10. The winery uses a crush pit to process the grapes, where they are de-stemmed and crushed.
11. The crushed grapes and juice are piped off into massive tanks for fermentation.
12. The winery uses open-air fermentation tanks for some wines, such as Pinot Noir.
13. The winery's senior winemaker, Andrea Card, tastes the wine from every tank multiple times a day.
14. The wine is aged in toasted oak barrels, which impart flavor and give the wine time to undergo secondary fermentation.
15. The winery uses a bladder press to squeeze out excess wine from the skins.
16. The leftover skins are sent to compost.
17. The wine is bottled and labeled, with a special machine designed to apply a gold net to the outside of the bottle.
18. The winery's most popular wine is the Claret, which is bottled and packaged on-site.
19. The winery has a packaging room where bottles are labeled and packaged.
20. The packaging room has been run by the same person for 38 years.
21. The winery produces a range of wines, including a reserve tier that is meant to be a more serious wine.