Francis Ford Coppola - Golden Age Wine God?

The truly great are fighters for life, touched with fire, and not smothered by mundane things, said Stephen Spender in his famous poem, “I Think Continually Of Those Who Were Truly Great.” Francis Ford Coppola embodies that ideal by his spiritual imperative to make life as bright as a sun, more passionate, pulsing with and connected to the universal, and exciting.
Coppola’s achievements are widely known and chronicled, but when I read that he considers business an art that comes from the things of your soul, I realized to satisfy my curiosity about his immense drive and astonishingly diverse achievements, I needed to go back and re-read a bit of 377 B.C. vintage, Plato.
Plato believed in eternal, human, inborn spiritual blueprints, or forms, which echoed the pantheon of the gods whose energies could be harnessed by mortals. Jungian philosophy is based on Plato’s forms. Jung said he stood in awe of the depths and heights of the soul beyond this world and space, and its immeasurable richness stored and organized into images gathered from millions of years of living. “These images are not pale shadows. But powerful…conditions of the soul…we can only misunderstand. But never rob of their power by denying them.”
Viewing Mr. Coppola through the prism of Plato’s classic forms, Jungian archetypes, and Stephen Spender’s Truly Great, I see a powerful condition of the soul that looks to my eyes like the flip-sides of Apollo, god of reason, harmony, order, prophecy; and Dionysus, god of wine and fertile agriculture, intoxication, sensual pleasures, theatre, and festivity.
When Coppola expresses a desire to build a beautiful city for people to live engaged in creativity, education, ritual, festivity, and athletic perfection, he is describing a Golden Age. Plato created this recipe of Golden Ages: societies organized around the needs of the human soul. Plato’s simple idea founded the Golden Age of Greece, the Italian Renaissance, and France’s 18th century Enlightenment on which America was based.
This simple Golden Age recipe liberates the spirit that is then set free to produce epic creations. Coppola says his secret is enthusiasm, which means ‘in spirit,’ like Dionysus who’s unquenchable spirit sets us free.
Coppola has acted like a funnel, and also an amplifier of those immense archetypal spiritual riches. As cosmos means one united, harmonious whole, Dionysus stands for complexity, and also for the writer who can solve earthly dilemmas. As a writer, director, and entrepreneur, Coppola takes the creative chaos, passion, and theatricality provides a theme and funnels it into a reasoned, harmonious whole, be it his wines, his film, his resorts, or his life.
And as he has funneled undifferentiated creativity into powerful patterns of being, he has also amplified his heart-based rearing by Italian-American show-business parents into his mega-successful wineries. In 1975, he bought the historic Inglenook/Niebaum Estate where he produces opulent red wines under the Niebaum-Coppola and Coppola labels, and in 2006, bought the Château Souverain in Sonoma Valley, renamed it Francis Ford Coppola Winery, and relocated most of his operations there, other than the Rubicon vintages.
He’s said he wants to a capture the spirit of a warm, happy Italian family, like the one of his childhood Brooklyn home that revolved around festive family meals served with rich, fruity homemade wines.
With the skills of a philosopher, a poet, and even a psychiatrist, Coppola weaves eternal forms and complex human desires into epic stories of passion and greatness. Like a god of wine he’s intermingled the romance of wines, their distinct spirit of place, with their ancient heritage and their aliveness even as we drink-in those elixirs of the gods. Coppola’s theme, like all the Truly Greats, is life. His wineries are organized around the things of the soul, containing the spirit and the blueprint for another Golden Age.
© 2007-Suzanne de Cornelia. This may be reprinted on websites as long as the entire article, including email link and resource box are included, and unchanged.
The author’s romantic adventure novel, French Heart, set on wineries in Aix-en-Provence, France, and Santa Barbara will be released in 2008. Please sign up today for the book’s announcement list at americaninparisproject@yahoo.com
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Travel Around The Globe Of Wine

If there ever was a single location that would be considered pure paradise for wine tours, it would be the state of California. Perhaps that statement is somewhat disingenuous. Bear in mind, California is a gigantic state and is made up of many counties and locations where one could take part in a wine tour.
This does present a problem although the problem could easily be circumvented by merely taking part in more than one wine tour! If you have a limited amount of time to go on the wine tours, then there are two specific areas in California where you could pinpoint your visit. These areas are, of course, Napa Valley and Sonoma Valley.
Both Napa Valley and Sonoma Valley have a thriving wine culture that attracts a significant number of tourists every year. The wine tours that are available are expansive, inexpensive and, best of all, fun. If you make only one wine tour in your lifetime go to California it will be an experience you will never forget
Choose Among The Best:
Of course, if you wish to spend time taking part in a wine tour, you need to settle on where you wish to go. This can be a thrilling decision to make as the sheer vastness of the choices is incredibly expansive. There is simply no limit to the many regions and the volume of destinations and places where you could visit to take part in a wine tour. The possibilities are endless. Well, ‘no limit’ is not an entirely accurate decision. It would help that the wine tours you embark upon are destinations to places that actually have a winery! As a matter of fact, you will discover that it is not at all difficult to locate a winery. The difficulty will involve centering on which specific wine tour to take as making a choice in the matter may prove incredibly difficult.

Top 5 Wines For Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving is right around the corner, and it is time to consider what will be served. For some, the traditional turkey dinner is a family tradition. For others, goose or duck are a nice variation. Still others prefer beef or a nice, spiral cut ham. Regardless of your preference for your main dish, it is important to select a suitable wine to enhance the flavors. This article will offer some suggestions for types of wines to be considered.
Let us start with a traditional Thanksgiving turkey dinner. Assuming you are going to roast your turkey, a light delicate wine is in order. Generally, you will find more white wines in this category. Good choices might include a white Savennieres from France, or a pinot grigio from Italy. Oregon produces a wonderful pinot gris as well. You may want to select a nice sauvignon blanc to balance the herbal flavor of your stuffing.
Should your main dish be a duck or goose, which are more fatty, a wine that is acidic would do quite nicely. Recently, South Africa has produced a wonderful pinotage. For the more traditional approach, go with a sangiovese or a white burgundy from France. These wines strike a wonderful balance with the fattier flesh!
Some people prepare poultry dishes with spicy sauces. To complement spicy dishes, the Alsace region of France produces a delightful slightly dry pinot blanc as well as red Burgundies. From the U.S., pinot noir is a great choice!
Should your main course be beef, say, a hearty standing rib roast, try a “in your face” smoky wine. A Barolo or a Barbaresco are good choices. Many people will also serve a bold, California cabernet with a luscious cut of prime rib! The ‘”rule of thumb”is that one should select a less complex wine to go with a complex sauce. Assuming, of course, you are serving your beef with a sauce. A nice grenache or a Spanish Rioja are terrific with beef as well!
These wine suggestions are to be taken with a “grain of salt.”Ultimately, one should always choose wines that they like. Your taste buds are always the winner!!
Michael Hutchins is a noted author and speaker on subjects related to entertaining at home. A self proclaimed “party animal”, Michael is noted for his wit and creativity.

Tips and Techniques on how to Make Wine at Home

Equipment To start making your own wine you need wine making equipment. You can either buy a kit which has the basic needs of all you will need, a demijohn, funnel, fermentation lock etc.. This is a good starter pack and you can find it in any wine making or home brewing specialist stores, sometimes even some department stores have them.
Receipe book The next item you need is a step by step amateur wine making book, you want one that has easy to follow recipes, and use of kitchen appliances if possible. For example put a stool upside down, and when draining your liquor, use the four legs to support your linen towel and let it drain through a funnel into your demijohn.
Now to how to make wine, always make sure all your equipment is thoroughly clean. This is very important as any dirt can contaminate the wine.
Ingredients You can start by using fresh fruit. It is always advisable to buy fruit which is in season, this reduces the cost, and also makes a good wine. Or you can buy grape concentrate. By using grape concentrate to make wine at home, you can choose dry or sweet, light or full bodied, white rose or red this should give you a density of between 3-5%. It is easy with this method and ending in good results. You must follow the instructions and with all wine do not rush it. Concentrated grape juice wines are usually ready to drink within two months.
But if you want to really get into how to make wine at home use fruit, it is much more satisfying and I think a better result and should give you a higher density.
Method Now to make from fruit, every fruit is different but it will tell you in the recipe how much fruit you require. Basically you need a clean bucket, X amount of fruit and 5 litres of hot water. Pour the hot water over the fruit. X amount of sugar depending on how sweet or dry you require the wine to be. Stir all together, and cover the top with a linen cloth, when luke warm add the wine making yeast. Stirring occasionally for the next 24 hours. Different yeast makes different tasting wine, there is a port yeast, sherry type, tokay yeast that makes a rice wine taste out of this world.
Now the turned up stool. Sieve the contents of the bucket through a gauze or even a pair of ladies stockings, into the demijohn, this lets the liquor run through and leaves the sediment behind. The remains of the fruit you throw away, the liquor in the glass vessel you add a pectin enzyme capsule, this helps assist fermentation, clear the wine and improves the colour. Your then put the fermentation lock with fluid in on top of the demijohn and leave in a warm place.
You will notice bubbles coming out of the fermentation lock, this is basically the yeast eating the sugar to turn into alcohol and so releasing gasses.
The sediment settles to the bottom of the demijohn, and the wine starts to clear at the top. If the fruit is fleshy, and the liquid still murky after about a month, you may need to re-rack your wine. This means, get a tube and drain off the clear liquor leaving the sediment behind. Put this into the demijohn again and put the fermentation lock back.
on At all times keep the wine in a warm place.
Final Result When clear it is ready to drink.
Tips If the wine is taking a long time to clear, add some clean egg shells to the demijohn, this is a natural protein, does not add any taste to the wine, but clears it and gives it an added kick.
That is the basics of how to make wine, either with a ready made concentrate or fresh fruit picked from your garden. Whichever you choose it is a worth while hobby.

Give The Spice Of Ecstasy on Wine Tasting

Wine tours, you can spend a whole holiday touring the wineries and vineyards or take a day, lunch or afternoon tour. There are many options for you to choose but you can be assured you will have a very enjoyable time and it will be a great learning experience. If you are fortunate enough to live near a wine producing area, then the day tours will probably suit you. If not, why now plan a holiday to one of the wine areas, you will learn a lot, meet new people and generally have a great time.
Your local travel agent will be able to help you with what is available and you may be surprised at how many areas that no one would have thought to grow wine grapes years ago that are now producing some wonderful wines. There are companies who specialize in wine tours, why not investigate your local area, there can be pockets of boutique wineries and a day or afternoon tour will get you to several vineyards to sample their wines. Often times these smaller vineyards will have some very lovely wines to add to your cellar, wines that are never seen in the stores or even restaurants.
Have Fun While Moving on to the Places Of Wine Tasting:
The beauty of going to these smaller cellar doors is often times the winemaker is there to meet and greet you and is only too happy to share some (of course, not all) of his winemaking tips. If you are into winemaking then this is a fantastic opportunity.
One of the best aspects of a wine tour is you are driven; you can sample the wines and not have to worry about driving your car. With the wine tours, you will have a guide who knows the area well, knows about each winery; will have your lunch, afternoon tea or dinner organized. You can be collected from your accommodation and returned at the end of the day. The wine tour doesn’t just include your lunch or dinner but it will be wonderful gourmet food and of course, the correct wines to go with this great tasting food. This way, not only do you get to taste wonderful wines but you will learn what wine to serve with what food and what course.
Take into Service An Expert:
The wine producing country is always picturesque. The vineyards are beautifully landscaped, normally in keeping with the buildings. The eating areas can be anything from high class restaurants to great rustic courtyards or country charm verandahs overlooking the surrounding countryside with the grape vines extending as far you can see.
On most wine tours you will be able to wander through the vines and see first hand the growing of the grapes, a walk through the wine storage areas, see the huge wine casks with the wine at various stages of production. You will see the difference between a traditional and a modern winery. The modern winery is all clinical and spotless whereas the traditional is oak barrels of all sizes, earth floors and a wonderful aroma. You can compare the difference in the wines that come from each style of production. Smaller wineries will have the more traditional set up but a larger winery will more often that not, have the modern system because of the production necessary to supply the amount of wine needed.

Portuguese Wine The Best In The World

Portuguese wine is part of the country’s ancient tradition introduced to the region by ancient civilizations such as the Phoenicians, Carthaginians, Greeks, and mostly the Romans. These wines are known worldwide for their high quality and in last few years has been considered by specialists among the best in the world, as is reflected in its success in international competitions.
It is famous for its taste and quality world wide and Portugal boasts of some of the best vineyards accumulating wine and is one of the most prominent, and underrated wine producers of the world.
By some it’s considered Portugal’s best-kept secret. The most famous Portuguese wine is surely Porto, yet there are a lot of other wine-producing regions in Portugal. Although Portuguese wine is as old as any other European region’s, it is just recently rising to new heights in quality and more contemporary style.
As Portuguese cuisine has re-established itself in restaurants so has it’s Wines.
Wine is named according to the names of the regions they are produced in Portugal. Wines from villages of Durnstein and Loiben are superb, and Spitz and Joching are very good but tend to be more delicate due to the cooler nights of the region. The of Vinho Verde region, in the Northwest produces some of the world’s finest, unique and highest value-added wines.
Portugal has about 500 native breeds, producing a very wide variety of different wines with distinctive personality. The country is considered a traditional wine grower with 8% of its continental land dedicated to vineyards and is home to one of the greatest international wine success stories of modern times. In the late 1980s, Mateus accounted for over 40% of the country’s total table wine exports and was especially popular in Europe. The quality and great variety of wines in Portugal are due to noble castas, microclimates, soils and proper technology. The most popular variety in Portugal and abroad are the white wines, but there are also red and more rarely rosé wines.
It’s believed that wine exports started during the Roman Empire.
With the quality and uniqueness of its wines, the country is a sizable and growing player in wine production, being in the top 10, with 4% of the world market. During the Roman rule over Portugal, the vineyard culture greatly developed, as the region supplied Rome with its wines.

All About Vintage Wine

Vintage, when it comes to wine, has a unique definition: it isn’t merely an old, classic bottle or one wearing a Guns and Roses hat and Van Halen (pre Sammy Hagar) shirt. In wine, vintage is defined as being made from a particular harvest or a specific crop. A 1989 vintage Riesling, for example, is made up of grapes from - you guessed it - 1989.
Still, not every single grape used for the wine may be from the year denoted. Like a fruit with a fake ID, some grapes from other years may sneak in. How many, however, depends on the country.
In the wine regions of Chile and South America, at least three fourths of the wine must be from the vintage year in order to bear that year on the label. In Australia, New Zealand, Europe and the United States the rule sits at 85 percent. But, the United States has an exception for wine that is from an American Viticultural Area, such as Napa Valley, the Hamptons, and the Ohio River Valley. For wine from AVA designated regions, 95 percent of the grapes must be from the same year in order to be considered vintage.
On the opposite end of the vintage spectrum are the bottles full of grapes from at least two or more years. Wines that can never be sued for ageism, nonvintages are produced by winemakers who blend a variety of grapes, and create a style that is somewhat constant with each production.
While being deemed “vintage” can go somewhat to the wine’s head, as they are found being (Cabernet) Franc about their greatness, there is some dispute as to its importance. One of the sources of dispute come from the wine’s country, or rather climate, of origin.
Wines produced in colder climate, such as Canada, Washington, and Vermont, often place a higher value on vintage wines. This is because certain years may produce certain climates. A particularly warm year in Washington, for instance, will produce a different tasting wine that a particularly chilly year. When the weather dictates both the wine’s taste, and its quality, vintage come off the bench to plays a necessary role.
Conversely, in wine producing regions where the climate does not vary, a vintage bottle might not have a grape up on its nonvintage competition. Year after year, many of the wines may taste similar. Still, this isn’t always the (wine) case.

The History of Shiraz Wine

Shiraz, known as syrah in France, Chile, Argentina and most parts of the United States, is a type of grape. This grape, used to make wine, has a deep purple color. Shiraz is a unique wine, and has one of the highest serving temperatures of them all, 65 degrees Fahrenheit.
The name Shiraz is taken from the city of Shiraz, Iran, where it is said that the process of wine making originated 7,000 years ago. According to some historic accounts, Guy De’Sterimberg brought Shiraz to southern France after visiting Iran during the crusades. Eventually, he became a hermit and created a vineyard on a hill near his home in the Rhone River Valley. This wine became known as the Hermitage.
Many times, Shiraz is blended with other grape varieties, like Merlot, Grenache, and Cabernet Sauvignon. Lately, some Austrailian producers have begun adding nerly 4 percent Viognier to their wine, which adds apricot tones to the scent and flavor of the wine. Because it’s such a small percentage, the producer doesn’t have to declare on the label that the wine is a blend.
Under American wine laws, either Shiraz or Syrah may appear on the bottle’s label, though few American wineries choose to follow the New World style and label them Syrah. While increasing amounts of the grape are being grown in Washington state, California still has the stronghold in America. Introduced in 1985 to the state of Washington by the Woodinville, Washington Columbia Winery, the area is also blending Shiraz with Grenache, Viognier and Cinsault.
In very warm regions, the shiraz grape usually isn’t strong enough to stand on its own in a bottle. In more mountainous areas, however, wineries tend to produce more varietal based wines. This is why many of these wines that come out of Napa Valley, CA tend to be blends.