- [Dan] The Francis Ford Coppola Winery
has become an icon in the American wine game
(grapes falling)
with wines in nearly every price point.
You can find Coppola in supermarkets
and boutique wine shops,
and even in Michelin-starred restaurants across the country.
What I'm wondering is how can they appeal to all these
different markets and make a product that wine snobs know
for more than just having a famous founder?
So today I'm headed to Geyserville, California
in the Alexander Valley to see how the team behind Coppola
uses new world and old world techniques
to keep the product consistent.
First up, I'm hanging out with Chief Winemaker, Corey Beck.
Who's been in charge of the operation since the early 1990s.
I'll be meeting him at the Coppola Reserve Vineyard,
where a team is about to come in and pick grapes
for one of their higher end wines all by hand.
(machine whirring)
Hi, I'm Dan, and this is Dan Does.
- [Corey] So what we have here is our Cabernet Sauvignon.
These vines were planted in the mid-eighties, right?
So long before you were born.
We'd call this the canopy.
These leaves, I like to call them solar panels.
Sun is hitting here, all the carbohydrates,
all the energy is being generated to ripen the sugar.
We like to leave a little bit of the leaves as shade, right?
So one of the things we have to battle here was with heat.
So we get a lot of the afternoon sun
that comes over this way.
So we'll keep more leaves on this side.
And if you look over here on this.
There's not a lot of leaves
because we've actually pulled those leaves
so we can get light penetration,
cause light helps provide color.
- [Dan] What is the window that you can
actually pick these grapes.
- [Corey] Right now we're blessed
with some cool mornings, which we have here.
Anytime you have that,
the grapes kind of just calmed down a bit.
So when it gets to that hundred plus range
we have a very short window,
because they're just ripening so quickly.
So you probably have about a 10 day window right now,
that we can start.
- Oh crap, okay.
Yeah when it's like this, when it's hot it's a 2 day window.
- [Dan] Each vine gets its own constant water source,
but the grapes are grown on just enough water to survive.
- [Corey] For grape vines, you actually want soil
that's going to stress the hell out of the vines, right?
To fertile? All the growth and everything
just keeps growing the grapes.
- You want them to fight for it a little bit
is that what it is?
- [Corey] You do
You want them to struggle a bit so they're not so happy,
because you don't want these things big and plump.
- [Dan] So they're more flavor-dense I guess?
- [Corey] That's correct.
- It's funny cause they say wine is a depressant, right?
And so much of your job is keeping things miserable.
(laughing)
- [Corey] Exactly!
(upbeat music)
- [Dan] Before calling in the pick,
Corey has to do a final check
to make sure the sugar content of the grapes
is within the range he wants.
If it's too low, they'll have to wait.
And if it's too high, the grapes will be used
for a lower grade wine or not used at all.
- A sample you probably usually want
a hundred to 200 berries.
Grab about three or four, just like that.
Then you're going to do the best job
to crush all of those grapes okay?
(bag crinkling)
Okay good, oh boy heavy hand.
- [Dan] So much juice.
- [Corey] heavy hand there Dan.
It's about 26.8, roughly.
We're picking this at the optimal sugar.
- What is your range right in there?
- We're typically with Cabernet, we're from 25 to 28.
- [Dan] Can you show me how we would
actually hand pick these grapes?
- [Corey] We're going to do that.
- The goal is to come through
and you're going to set your picking lug down here.
This long green,
- [Dan] Okay.
- [Corey] it's called the rachis.
You're going to cut that, drop it in your box.
- And you guys have a first aid kit ready you said?
- [Corey] We do, as soon as you make your first cut
you're on the clock.
- [Dan] Ready?
- [Corey] Yep.
(vines snapping)
There you go.
(fast paced music playing)
- That was inefficient.
I'm sucking right now.
- [Corey] Time.
(alarm rings)
- Not bad?
- [Corey] Not bad at all.
- It's not easy work, this aspect of it.
- No, It's, It's hard.
- [Dan] From here Corey's going to give the green light
and then call in the pick.
The team first goes through and clears away the leaves
and then goes through again and blitzes the grapes
as fast as they can.
Higher quality wines need handpicking
to keep out as many leaves as possible
and to not disturb the more sensitive branches and trees.
(tractor engines roaring)
(grapes falling)
- [Corey] Don't pull anything.
So you can see here what Mike's doing, right?
He's going through grabbing out some of the leaves.
- Snagging leaves, cleaning up product here for my boys.
How long will it take to fill this up?
- It could probably fill in another half hour.
- With just seven guys here?
- Just these seven guys here. Yeah.
- [Dan] Incredible how fast everyone works.
Once the vines have been picked,
Corey and the team will repair dead plants
and make adjustments to the crops
based on how the wine comes out.
The grapes that were just harvested
now head to the crush pit.
Where they will undergo the first stage of processing.
(truck engine roaring)
- Here's our Cabernet that we just picked.
We have our hoist over here.
When you pick it up
- Right
- And moving it forward.
If you tilt too far, this thing could come crashing down.
- [Dan] Ooh, Yeah
- [Corey] Over here, okay.
- [Dan] All right so I'm going to hit this button
and it's going to slowly raise these troughs.
- [Corey] Yeah, these bins.
- These bins.
- [Corey] Yup, you're going to slowly raise them
and put them in position too, so go ahead.
So you, Yep.
(machine lifting)
- Wow. It's too much power for me.
- [Corey] Is that cool?
- Are they coming out?
- [Corey] This is the tipping point here
you gotta be very careful.
(grapes falling)
- So why don't you go in and pick out some of those.
- Just go for it?
- Yeah, Yeah.
Try and get every last little bit in.
- [Dan] I guess you can be a little rough with it, right?
- [Corey] Oh yeah.
Dive in there and
I think it's about 20 clusters
for a bottle of wine.
- Really?
- Roughly.
(metal scraping)
- How am I looking?
- [Corey] Great.
This is where you want to clean the bins out.
- Aren't you adding water to the, to the wine.
- It's so little bit, you're just, this is just a rinse.
(water spraying)
Yeah so the goal is that then you send these
back to the vineyard.
- Right.
- [Corey] Nice and clean with no sugar.
And then, you know, depending on if there's tourists around,
you'd give them,
- Ooh
- Give them a shot.
Sorry about that.
(machine buzzing)
Once we have the grapes here in our hopper
We have our auger that's slowly taking them
to where they will get de-stemmed.
(upbeat music)
And then finally we have our rollers down there,
which will crush them.
(grapes sloshing)
- [Dan] The crushing simulates traditional foot stomping.
It's meant to be harsh enough to break all the skins,
but not too rough to crush the seeds
and release their bitterness.
(machine buzzing)
- So now everything's getting into our sump here
and this pump right now.
- Oh cool!
- And you can see there,
they're taking them in through here into the winery.
- [Dan] A big part of this operation
is dealing with all the stems and leaves.
Nearly half of these machines are meant
to get them back onto a truck,
to be used as compost for future plots.
The crushed grapes and juice are piped off
into massive tanks where they will undergo
the first stage of fermentation to create alcohol.
I'm meeting Senior Winemaker Andrea Card,
over at the larger commercial tanks to see what's going on.
(tubes pumping)
I sorta helped.
- How much will one of these tanks hold, how many.
- Well this is kind of one of our big boys.
- Oh yeah.
- So this is going to hold like 55 tons of fruit.
- Okay.
- So we can only fill it up a certain amount of space
- [Dan] Okay.
- because if we fill it all the way to the top
with fermentation it spans and it gets hotter.
It's just like a boiling pot of pasta.
- [Dan] Right, Right.
- And so then it'll stay in this tank
for probably 10 days to 2 weeks,
- [Dan] Okay.
- Depending on the fermentation.
(chuckling)
I like that you find this entertaining.
- [Dan] Wine's like Pinot Noir
use an open air fermentation tank,
which is helpful for looking at the way they are constantly
keeping the grapes moist and aerating the wine.
The process we're about to see happens about twice a day.
Andrea What are you, what are you going to do right now?
- [Andrea] I'm going to turn it on so it starts sprinkling.
- Okay, so this is uh...
(water sprinkling)
(laughing)
- [Andrea] Is it going?
- Yeah it's going.
- [Andrea] Okay.
- [Dan] I really thought it was going to go down
and then spin everything.
And it turns out it's like Willy Wonka.
- The foaming is really part of the fermentation process.
It's the yeast reducing CO2.
Basically yeast eat the sugar,
convert it to alcohol, and burp out CO2.
It will form a cap with the skins,
as you can kind of see on the top here.
- [Dan] Yeah.
- And the idea is that we want to make sure that
we're getting wine or must juice
- Right
- Going through the entire thing.
It's a few feet.
- [Dan] There's actually some yeast
still hiding in the skin.
So constantly running the liquid through it
helps not only with color,
but to create the last bit of alcohol.
So as Senior Winemaker,
Andrea has to taste the wine from every tank,
multiple times a day to spot imperfections
or whatever else might've gone wrong.
- So this tank has Cabernet in it.
This has fermented all the way down to three bricks.
So it's still not dry.
It's still not ready yet,
- Right.
- But we'll see what you think of it.
So we do swirl the wine and it's not to be pretentious.
It's not to look fancy.
It's actually to volatilize the aromatics,
and so then you shove your face in it.
- Mhmm.
- The idea is that you're smelling if there's anything off,
- [Dan] Right.
if there's anything amazing.
All of those kinds of things,
you're looking for all of it at this point.
- Interesting.
So if there are amazing things, then.
- We make note of it and it's like,
oh this is tasting really great.
This potentially could go to a different program
or go to a higher tier or a lower tier.
- Oh cool, okay.
- All of those things.
- So having many tiers of wine
actually gives you a lot of flexibility.
- Yeah. So then the best part about this,
is that you get to spit.
- Right there?
- Yeah.
Just don't spit on my boots.
As you can see, other people have.
Can you imagine tasting all of these tanks every day
and forgetting to spit?
(spitting)
You wouldn't forget.
- No you wouldn't forget.
(wine pouring)
- [Dan] Once Andrea thinks the wine has fermented enough,
she will give the go-ahead to drain the wine from the tank.
From here the leftover skins and whatever Pulp
is at the bottom are sent to a bladder press.
Which is basically a container
that fills with a giant balloon to squeeze out excess wine
still contained in the skins.
From here, the leftover skins
are also sent over to the compost.
At this point the wine is the ideal color,
sugar level, and alcohol content
so it's ready for barreling.
Similar to bourbon,
Coppola's wines are put in toasted oak barrels.
So this is whites and reds in here?
- Yeah. Whites and reds.
- [Dan] Holy sh*t, this is huge.
- [Andrea] So this is the cooper's name
and their information.
And then has our information, and then it tells us exactly
what type of oak this wood actually is.
- [Dan] The barrels aren't just there
to impart wood flavor into the wine.
They also give the wine time to undergo
what is called secondary fermentation.
- Secondary fermentation is changing malic acid,
like an apple acid into lactic acid.
And lactic acid is like the milk acid, right?
It gives you that creamy flavor.
So for red, you're getting like a bigger,
better mouth feel like it's more round,
it's more palatable really.
- Alcohol percentage is not changing.
- The alcohol percentage is now stopped, yeah.
- Because there's nothing left for the yeast,
- There's no more sugar.
- Right.
Now we get to try some wine
that's been sitting in the oak barrel for about one year.
That's fine, thank you.
- Oh, you have enough.
(laughing)
- Yeah.
- So you can feel the oak influence, Right?
- Oh yeah, for sure.
- And it, and it starts from day one.
So in another year we will then put that into the bottle
and it will mellow and all be super balanced in the mouth.
(barrels clanking)
- [Dan] After the wine has done aging,
the barrels are dumped and then rinse,
so they can be used again.
(water splashing)
The final stage is bottling.
(glass clanking)
And today we're getting the chance
to see the claret being bottled.
Which is by far Coppola's most popular wine.
(machines clanking)
- [Andrea] This is what a consumer would find
in the grocery store.
So this is like our most well-known wine.
- This is one of the big sellers.
- Yeah, the most amount of wine that we make
is for this label.
(jumpy music playing)
- They have absolutely no reason to let me do this,
but that's Hollywood baby.
(glass clanking)
- And now slide
Pull up
- Yup, you want to hit it.
God, it scary every time.
- So the bottles come in here,
and they're actually getting gassed right now.
And the idea is to drive out any oxygen
that might be in the bottle itself.
So every single one has a perfect fill level.
So that way when it does get corked
it has the right pressure in there,
and everything is good.
(machines blaring)
- [Dan] Corks heading up for the corking system.
(bottles clanking)
- [Andrea] Caps will get spun on.
- It's not spinning the bottle is it, its just, yeah
- [Andrea] It's spinning around and down.
And that guy is clamping it down,
like a little rubber bumper.
And it has this beautiful gold net
on the outside.
And we had to have special machinery designed
just for us to be able to apply it.
- [Dan] One of my favorite parts
of seeing these factories is checking out the machines
that companies have built specifically
to automate a unique style element that you
can't find anywhere else on any other product.
So they actually have a two-step process
where they spread the -- oh my God, it's so cool.
- Yeah
- They spread the nets out,
and then they use like a mold.
- [Andrea] A form, yeah.
- [Dan] A form, and then shove them in.
- [Andrea] Insert, insert the bottles
and then tighten and twist.
- [Dan] Wait, you've been here 30 years?
- 38 years.
- 38 years you've been packaging,
you've been running this room?
- Yes
- Ever anywhere else or always in this room?
- Always in this room.
- How can you still hear?
- I wear earplugs when I'm here.
(laughing)
(bottles clanking)(machines blaring)
- Jesus Yolanda.
- You've just gotta let enough bottles go by,
so he's gonna need all of these.
- Those are all his.
- All right
You've gotta count and pack.
Perfect.
Now let 6 go by, there's 2,
6.
You're packing right here.
- Oh so when you get time to set the box up.
- Yes, yes yes yes.
- Okay cool.
- You're hired.
- No stop, that's the nicest thing anyone's ever said to me.
(laughing)
- It's now finally time to try some finished wine.
First off, we're going to try the ultra popular Claret.
And then we're going to see if we can spot the difference
between that and something more exclusive
like the line we saw picked this morning.
So you tried this wine already.
(cheerful music)
- [Andrea] Many times.
- Well I hope you've done well.
(glasses clanking)
- Thank you.
- I will say it's really hard
to like actually have watched the work that you guys do
and like watch you running around
and trying all these different things.
To not just be like, "oh, it's the best wine I've ever had."
- So this is our reserve here.
This wine is meant to be a more serious wine.
- Whoa, I feel like I taste the whole day.
I think if you really invest yourself,
now I taste the different parts in that sip.
Like I see the different rooms a little bit.
- I love it.
- (all) Cheers.
(glass clanking)