Hollywood & Vine

The wine with the hottest heavyweight endorsement at the moment is one from a winery owned by Hollywood's own Francis Ford Coppola, who began bottling his vintages almost three decades ago. Naysayers dubbed his risky enterprise "Francis' folly" in its early days, but today the Niebaum-Coppola Winery makes a quarter of a million cases of wine under a plethora of labels, and Coppola the elder rakes in more revenue as a vintner than he ever did as a filmmaker. Their newest product is the Sofia Mini, a line of canned bubbly launched this spring that re-imagines sparkling wine for the Hollywood neo-hip-ster. Cleverly packaging a blend of Pinot Blanc and Sauvignon Blanc in 187-ml rosé cans that come with individual tiny straws, the Sofia Minis have been publicized in a print campaign starring the very person who inspired them--Oscar-winning filmmaker Sofia Coppola. There she is, staring back from the pages of glossy magazines, sleepy-eyed, wrapped in a rabbit fur bomber jacket, with a six pack's worth of empty Mini cans sprinkled around her like confetti: Could there ever be a more fitting--or more arresting--visual rendition of Hollywood's love affair with wine?

Speaking of visual renderings: Sideways, the new indie film from virtuoso filmmaker Alexander Payne, is a delightfully wry wine-centric yarn in which individual wines from California's Central Coast like Sea Smoke and Bien Nacido Pinots and Andrew Murray Syrahs, are as distinct a presence as the film's protagonists. Payne, who is a committed oenophile himself, based his script on the eponymous novel by Rex Pickett and kept in a lot of the real-life vintages that figure prominently in it. He also slipped in some personal favorites. A 1988 Sassicaia--a Tuscan Cab that is most special to him--shows up in a turning-point scene. "That's the wine that really turned me on," the director notes. "I'd always liked wine, but that was a bit of an epiphany. I thought, 'Wow! Wine can do this?'"

Wine seems to be on everybody's mind lately: at this year's Cannes film fest, Mondovino, an exposé of the behind-the-scenes struggles within the global wine industry, was one of only two documentaries--besides eventual Palme d'Or winner Fahrenheit 9/11--screening in the official competition.

"For a long time people of stature have been making wine," says Wally's Navarro. The list of celebs-turned-winemakers in fact encompasses everybody from Sting (who bottles his own Chianti at his estate in Tuscany) to Sam Neill (who owns a winery in New Zealand) to ultra-gourmand Gerard Depardieu, who owns multiple vineyards in the Bordeaux region and the Loire Valley, and several upscale restaurants where he serves his own vintages. Depardieu is so passionate about his grapes that his business card reportedly identifies him as "acteur-vigneron."

Coppola may have proved his doubters wrong by turning his winery into a profitable business, but the famously up-and-down wine industry is not where the Hollywood elite go for financial respite from their own crazy business. "I don't think [celebrities] are in the wine industry just to make money--they probably already have enough of it," says L.A.-based wine importer Jean-Marc Descabannes. His Pascal Wines is a wholesale purveyor to some of the city's finest eateries--Bastide, L'Orangerie, Michael's--and he also organizes private wine tastings about town and sometimes sells directly to Hollywood customers like Dustin Hoffman (who favors a particularly powerful, oaky Meritage made by Washington state's Powers Winery and buys it in bulk). "I think some celebrities have a passion for wine and want to achieve their goal by producing their own bottles," he adds. "This is actually the ultimate accomplishment in the wine industry--enjoying dinner with your own name on the bottle."

Of course, enjoying dinner with any number of other names on the bottle will also do, and that's what Industry oenophiles are increasingly doing together. The qualities of the wines being consumed make for lively chat in any case, but when the connoisseurs/collectors get together, the hunt for great vintages and the thrill of acquiring them make for natural discussion centerpieces at the table. Monday nights are special for L.A. wine lovers, because that is usually when the most committed aficionados tend to schedule their wine club meets. There are at least six such groups, the oldest one, WOW (Wines of the World), still going strong after 25 years.

Filmmaker James Orr, who spends about $50,000 a year to stock his 5,000-bottle cellar, is co-founder with Navarro of the Hollywood Pour Boys. A recent club meet held in the private banquet room upstairs at Campanile restaurant drew several of Orr's oenophile friends, including TV and film producers Arthur Sarkissian, Stephen Gelber, Anthony Wilson and Rob Lee, WB Network chairman Garth Ancier, writer-director Jefery Levy, special effects whiz Stan Winston and Hollywood business manager Matt Lichtenberg. Jazz guitarist Anthony Wilson, who backs up chanteuse Diana Krall onstage and was in town on tour, and 3 Arts Entertainment partner Michael Rotenberg dropped by at the last minute. Hors d'oeuvres (cedar-smoked salmon crostini and roasted figs stuffed with foie gras) paired with a Marcassin Hudson Chard kicked off the proceedings, but the evening was dedicated to a vertical exploration of a cult California red, the Abreu Cabernet. The guests sampled nine different rare vintages of the pricey Cab and feasted in between on Campanile chef Mark Peel's sumptuous courses--agnolotti stuffed with ricotta, wild spinach and summer truffles; coriander-crusted sautéd duck breast with grilled peaches; and dry-aged prime rib with potato aligot, glazed shallots and haricots verts. Espresso paired with a grape sorbet dessert sobered up the guests for the trip home.

Of course, beyond sampling great vintages, the best thing about wine clubs is all that gorgeous wine talk. For Hollywood denizens or mere mortals alike, Orr points out, "The pleasure of talking about wine is second only to drinking it."

The Goblet According to Andrew

Andrew Firestone's stint as a TV Bachelor in the spring of 2003 introduced him to America as the kind of unusually self-assured young man who can discuss college football, articulate the merits of Rhône varietal wines, and effortlessly charm the pants off any interlocutors (or interlocutorettes) in the process. It does of course help that Firestone was born into a sophisticated clan with ties to the arts, California politics and business. His great-grandfather founded the Firestone Tire and Rubber Company, which was sold off to corporate investors years ago, and today the family business revolves around eight winemaking estates nestled in the Santa Ynez Valley along California's Central Coast. The 29-year-old heir currently oversees sales at the flagship Firestone Winery and here he passes along some tips for how to get started on the path to true wine connoisseurship:

GLASS MATTERS: You wouldn't buy a Ferrari and park it on the street, so if you're going to open an expensive bottle of wine, serve it in a proper glass--ideally Reidel stemware, but in any case crystalware, and the correct shape for the type of wine. A Bordeaux glass, for example, has a larger bulb in order to increase the surface area and let the wine breathe. You want the wine to open up a bit. White wines don't need that same contact with the air, so they're served in a smaller bulb. The design of the glass is also meant to channel the bouquet. If you serve a wine in the wrong glass, the bouquet escapes without your being able to enjoy it.

PROPER HOLD: It's one of those classic, traditional things that you observe if you're enjoying a glass of wine--you hold it by the stem so as not to alter the temperature of the wine. It's not as important for reds, because they're served closer to room temperature, but it matters for whites.

GET THEE TO A WINERY: This is something everybody should do, because it will make you a more interesting person: Go to a winery. Before you go and blow $80 on a bottle of wine, know where it comes from. Go see how wine is made. Have an expert talk you through tasting the wine. Know how to sip, see, smell and taste. A lot of people think wine is an elitist beverage that's expensive and made secretively in dark, hollowed caves. In fact, winemaking is a family-oriented, social activity. We're farmers--we create something from earth. It's a little bit of art, a little bit of science and a lot of romance.

WINE PLAY: This is my best advice for anybody who wants to have a fun evening with friends: Go to your local bottle shop, pick a style of wine and buy from three of four price classes, one under $10, one between $10 and $25, one between $25 and $40, and one that's very expensive. Brown-bag all of them, number them, and do a blind tasting using enough stemware so everybody can hold on to each of the wines. Have everybody write down their impressions and then discuss it! After everyone has talked about them, unveil the wines. A lot of times people will find that some of the more expensive wines are not the ones that taste the best to them. It's a good way to learn how subjective taste in wine can be.

IDEAL PAIRINGS: Supposedly, if you're eating pasta with a red sauce, you gotta have a big Bordeaux red. With chicken, you gotta drink Chardonnay. With fish, something light, like a Sauvignon Blanc. For dessert, a Riesling or a Muscat. There are guidelines in wine appreciation, but I don't think they're that rigid. Rhône varietal wines are my absolute favorites. The Syrah is a great dinner wine, a great before-dinner wine--in fact, a great breakfast wine! For dessert I'd have a Château d'Yquem if money weren't an obstacle, but I'll settle for a Riesling or a Muscat--both go well with fruit. Camembert with a little bit of honey and some walnuts is a great combination with a Viognier or a Chardonnay. Put a stronger cheese against something bolder--a Merlot or a Cabernet. I personally love baked Brie with a Merlot. I'm a big fan of blush Champagne, and with strawberries it's almost like a visual aphrodisiac. It's just a sexy combination.

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S.D.

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