A farming debate at Inglenook
More than anything, Inglenook’s shift in style requires change in the vineyards.
Francis Ford Coppola and his wife, Eleanor, have always been attentive to how their land was farmed. Eleanor Coppola successfully lobbied to convert the estate to organic farming more than two decades ago.
But there’s a curious ongoing dialogue in the fields between the Coppolas, Philippe Bascaules and vineyard manager Enrique Herrero — one that I caught in progress during a visit this month.
Coppola is an adamant proponent of farming without irrigation, while Bascaules — a newcomer to water use after his time in Bordeaux, where it’s illegal — views it as a tool to help reduce the dramatic ripeness and shriveled fruit that marks much Napa viticulture. For that matter, the estate’s dramatically low yields might be raised (some blocks at Inglenook currently grow 1½ tons per acre), which would help reduce sugar levels.
As he did at Chateau Margaux, Bascaules is tempted to take the best vine material — the descendants of Gustave Niebaum’s original cuttings (now called the Niebaum clone, or clone 29) and other outperformers — and cultivate them in a mass selection of genetic material for replanting, replacing small parcels each year rather than one large block at a time.
Although you can barely see them from Highway 29, Inglenook’s hundreds of acres of vineyards remain its best strength, including headtrained Cabernet from 1965 in the “old garden” block, Zinfandel vines from 1973, a bit of Syrah and the mix of Rhonenative white grapes in a cooler swale. Herrero has been working for four years to improve the soils’ water capacity, avoiding tilling for several seasons to allow the soil drainage to improve.
Much as founder Gustave Niebaum employed 34 men year-round to tend his property, Coppola and his staff employ much of their vineyard crew full time, a departure from the valley’s typical use of migrant labor.
“It’s important for us that we keep people who have been employed for many years,” Herrero says. “When vines are planted over time, you need people to know them.”
For decades, that included Rafael Rodriguez, who had managed the Inglenook vineyards since the 1950s (sfg.ly/ K0VCKJ) and became its “vineyard historian,” but who also found himself at odds with viticultural practices in Rubicon’s past — including drastic reductions in yield that put vines into shock, as he describes it, on the way to cultivating superripe grapes.
“It was a defeat of my philosophy,” Rodriguez says now. “It made me cry when I saw those fields loaded with grapes at the bottom. I said hell, if you want to do that, why? Besides, it’s labor intensive. … You are throwing money to the ground.”
But Rodriguez also recalls how the vineyards were farmed (admittedly with very different vine training) in Inglenook’s heyday, when grapes were picked at moderate ripeness.
Though the particulars remain to be worked out, it appears that Bascaules’ intentions are reminiscent of those earlier days.
“I see already little changes, little changes that are good. I saw some cutting off of shoots that wasn’t done in previous years. It seems to me that Philippe wants to bring back the production of the vines.”