Francis Coppola, Claret Black Label Diamond Collection, Cabernet Sauvignon, 2019, Kalifornien

Wine-growing estate: The well-known director Francis Ford Coppola bought a part of the formerly world-famous Inglenook Estate in the Napa Valley in 1979, founded 100 years before by  the Finnish captain Niebaum. This had got too small now so that he only produces the flagship wines there. For the other wines he purchased the former chateau sovereign in the Sonoma Valley in 2007 to give them a durable home. The wines are anything but superficial Hollywood asterisks. They have a quite personal note, are full-bodied, perfectly balanced and long lasting.

Vineyard: The grapes are from Napa, Sonoma and the warmer El Dorado region. For Cabernet Sauvignon the conditions are ideal in El Dorado, here the grapes can ripen on almost 300 metres over the sea and with that outside the fog in the sunshine. Merlot and Cabernet Franc are from the Estate vineyard in the Napa Valley. Here cool winds of the Pacific penetrate into the valley about the San Pablo Bay in the late afternoon, one often finds fog in the vineyards in the morning which evaporates only with an increasing solar radiation. The soil are of volcanic origin, what leads to low yields. The combination delivers a complex wine from warm and cooler climatological conditions with an excellent balance.

Wine: Claret is the British name for a blend based on Cabernet  like it is usual in Bordeaux. The five classic Bordeaux types of vine - Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Cabernet Franc, Malbec and Petit Verdot - are blended.

The grapes were read from hand and passed through a cold maceration before the fermentation to extract intensive pigments and flavours. The wine matured in French barrique barrel.