Photo by Faith Ectemeyer

The Godfather Does Lunch How I got to eat, drink and be merry! with Francis Ford Coppola By Nancy Ross Ryan

I was prepared to be awed. It's not everyday (never) that I have lunch with Francis Ford Coppola -- I and about 20 other Chicago food and wine writers who are milling around at Chicago's Spago restaurant this day in May, drinking glasses of his Rosso and Bianco, waiting for his plane (private) to land after weather delays en route from Atlanta. Time is dragging its heels, and Spago's major domo finally invites us to be seated -- at unassigned seats (tables for eight) in a private dining room. I ask a rather prominent Chicago wine writer and a chef, both of my acquaintance, if I may join them at the one seat left at their table. But those clubby fellows are saving it for a friend. Mildly rebuffed I make my way to a table with three empty seats. I sit in one, and that leaves two. Karma is kind: in walks Francis Ford Coppola with his press agent Kathleen Talbert. They take the two remaining seats at my table, and Francis sits on my side. I was prepared, as I said, to be awed by this five-time Oscar winner who has been making great films for 30 years and great wine for 20 at his Niebaum-Coppola family winery in Napa Valley. But I was not prepared to be charmed. He asks, "May I? (I don't say, "I'm sorry, I'm saving this for a friend."), then sits down, says "Hello, I'm Francis," (as if who doesn't know), and then, "Nice pin. I like that it's small." (He is referring to my lapel pin, a small circlet of diamonds made from my Grandmother's belt buckle. Grandma was a babe.) "Thank you. How was your trip?" I ask. "Oh," he says shrugging philosophically, "This isn't the end. But I warned them," he says ("Them" being traveling companions, his winemaker, Scott McLeod, and winery manager-marketer Erle Martin), "Better get me now, because as of June, I'm out of commission. I'm going into a two-year retreat." "To do what?" I ask. "Just write," he says, "A personal project. Something original, maybe a novel, maybe a play, or a script. I've been working on it for many years, but before now there was no drive to 'do it.'" "But are your films not original?" "Yes, and no," he replies with a smile and a shrug, "In the film industry -- with rare exceptions -- there's a tendency toward movies that are made to order." "What is your favorite film?" -- an inevitable question. He doesn't say Apocalypse Now, or The Godfather, or Bram Stoker's Dracula (my favorite). He says, "The Conversation, because the script is original and personal." While he talks, he eats -- and enjoys -- his food (I can see he is really tasting it) and wine (his own of course). We all sampled his Rosso and Bianco, robust tables wines that retail for $10 the bottle, at the reception. He made these wines "because a lot of my friends couldn't afford Rubicon," his flagship wine that retails at about $80 the bottle. At lunch we are sampling some of his other wines, course by course, including his latest release, the 1996 Edizione Pennino Zinfandel. "Which is your favorite wine?" I ask. He doesn't say Rubicon, or Chardonnay, or any of the new Diamond Series Varietals. "The Zinfandel," he replies, "because it reminds me of the kind of wine my grandfather used to make. We lived in tenements in Brooklyn, and my grandfather had seven sons. He had a concrete fermenter in the basement and the grapes were locked up there before he made wine. Our Uncle Mikey loved to lower us on a rope to snitch grapes. We used to all sit around the table and eat and drink -- grandparents, parents, uncles, cousins. So wine was very much part of my boyhood." And, he adds, "Wine promotes moderation. You sit around the table and talk (in our family all at the same time) and eat." "Eat, drink and be merry," I comment. He agrees. And that leads to an animated discussion of how you cook real Pomodoro-Basilico sauce -- tomato-basil sauce. "You don't use garlic, no no. Not in this sauce. Just onions. And at the end you throw in the fresh basil. No oregano! he cautions. But you could put in a hunk of butter at the end. You do use garlic in other sauces," he says. Those would be his Puttanesca and Arrabbiata sauces, and sauces are his own recipes. He does cook at home. Coppola has just launched his new food line under the label: Francis Ford Coppola Presents Mammarella. There are three sauces, organic extra virgin olive oil, and four pastas made in old-fashioned pasta machines that shape them using antique bronze dies. Mammarella, pictured on the label, is his mother as a girl of seventeen. Just like his Rosso and Bianco wines, his pasta and sauces are intended for the everyday enjoyment of everyone, mindful that many will never taste his Rubicon wine and many will never dine at his Rubicon restaurant in San Francisco (a venture in partnership with Robert DeNiro and Robin Williams). He turns to me just before he gets up to leave and says, "A bottle of wine, a bag of pasta, a jar of sauce -- and you have a meal!" So I pick up a couple bottles of Rosso, and a bottle of Edizione Pennino Zinfandel. The Zinfandel label is a tribute to his Italian immigrant roots: a picture of the Bay of Naples on the left and the Statue of Liberty on the right. And because I couldn't make it this week to his Cafe Niebaum-Coppola in San Francisco to have a bowl of pasta with Pomodoro-Basilico -- al fresco on the year round cafe terrace -- I order sauce and gemelli pasta from his web site, www.niebaum-coppola.com. While the pasta cooks and the sauce heats, I open the bottle of Zinfandel, pour a glass and give it a whirl. The grapes for this wine were hand-harvested from vineyards planted in the 1850s. The wine is aged in new American oak for 6 months and French oak for another 6 months. The color is deep ruby, and aromas of ripe fruit, spice and vanilla greet me. Then I take my first sip. O.K. Now I'm awed.

THE BUZZ - September 1999

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