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For sheer entertainment value, for all the extras that have
little to do with wine, for the exceptional merchandising displays,
everyone who visits Napa Valley must visit this tasting room.
Make that "visit this series of tasting rooms." They sprawl
on and on.
Enter from the southernmost door of the winery building; you
are in an old taverna-like setting where they sell wine, Coppola-brand
pasta and pasta sauce. This is NOT the high-impact tasting room
where you should pull out your wallet and start spending. Hold
off. Walk through the door at the back of the room on the right
hand wall, and you will cross a series of vaulted rooms where
old vintages of Inglenook are cellared. Keep walking.
At one point, you will come to the famous (and gorgeous) $1
million staircase that Francis Ford Coppola had built. (It took
four master woodworkers a year to make the sweeping staircase
out of exotic hardwoods that include black poisonwood, grenedillo
and jobillo, imported from Belize.)
Head up the stairs and you will find a mint-condition example
of the 1948 Tucker car that Coppola featured in his movie Tucker,
starring Jeff Bridges. Be sure to peer into the window and get
a good look at the dashboard — then repeat to yourself,
"this car is 55-years-old!" It's so modern that it looks like
something out of Minority Report! You'll find other movie memorabilia
upstairs, too — Don Corleone's desk and chair from The
Godfather, and Coppola's five film Oscars.
Head back downstairs and turn left at the bottom of the staircase.
You are now entering the two main tasting rooms. They are merchandised
WBNM - Way Beyond Neiman Marcus. The rooms are breathtakingly
beautiful, commercially compelling. They do what great merchandising
is meant to do: make you want to take out your wallet and spend.
These are luxury items that Francis and Eleanor themselves use,
love, cherish — and want you to be able to own to emulate
their lives.
The eye-candy is divine. On a recent visit we saw (and wanted!)
a $400 handmade leather satchel that holds six bottles of wine,
a $300 handmade leather backgammon set that folds in half to
resemble a Florentine book from the 17th century, a $200 wool
scarf, cookbooks, cigars, chinaware, crystal decanters, oh,
and of course, wine. $8.50 gets you a glass to keep and a tasting
of four current release wines. If you're looking for a premium
tasting experience, the newly positioned Reserve tasting Room
will pour four premium wines for $25.
Niebaum-Coppola
at the intersection of Highway 29 and the Rutherford Crossroad.
The tasting room is open daily 10 to 5 every day of the year.
707-968-1100. |
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