Richard Abbattista knows about rare wines. And he knows when to make the kind of wine offer no one would want to refuse, least of all movie director and wine magnate Francis Ford Coppola.
Abbattista is retired from a 40-year career in the New Jersey wine industry. He worked for hundreds of wineries around the world including Coppola’s winery in Napa Valley, California.
(Courtesy of Richard Abbattista and Phyllis Bross)
Along the way, Abbattista won a bottle of 1973 Inglenook Estate Charbono in a sales incentive program in the 1980s. It is still unopened.
So when he read in “Wine Spectator” that Francis and Eleanor Coppola bought the historical Inglenook wine estate in 1975, Abbattista knew he wanted to send his prized wine to the director.
The California winery dates back to the late 1870s.
The bottle of wine was a thank you, Abbattista said, for Coppola’s great movies, such as “The Godfather” trilogy, but also for making great wines. As an industry insider, he felt pretty sure Coppola didn’t have this particular estate bottled wine.
He left a voice message and exchanged emails with Lorraine Gaudet, office manager for The Family Coppola: Wine, Food, Resorts and Adventure. Gaudet responded that Coppola would indeed be happy to accept Abbattista’s “very generous offer.”
She sent a wine-shipping box with a prepaid label and, on July 7, Abbattista sent his gift on its way to Coppola in California.
Published July 15, 2015
