Defining our Future with an Eye to the Past

After more than 30 years of making wine, movie director Francis Ford Coppola is dissatisfied. He feels that something is missing in his highly regarded California-styled wines, “that somehow we should do better.” In a revealing interview with David Darlington for Wine and Spirits Magazine, Coppola details a journey of rediscovery, a journey that relies on the past for inspiration. He recites the recent steps he has taken to understand the great wines of Napa’s past, how he hired a new winemaker with classical training, and how he reacquired the historic Inglenook name, all in an effort to create the “old fashioned qualities he was seeking.”

Coppola is not alone in looking to the past for his inspiration. Alberto Antonini, a respected international winemaker and consultant known for his modernist approach, is now abandoning his signature style to instead take inspiration from historic practices in the craft of making wines of terroir. In an interview last week with Jancis Robinson for the London Financial Times, Antonini explained his change in approach, emphasizing, “the use of synthetic products doesn’t help you display Nature. The products you are taught to use, … I have slowly got rid of all of these.”

It is wonderful to see these winemakers join the movement we’ve championed since we opened the doors to our winery and tasting room in August, 2009.  At the time, we were among the few espousing the crafting of wines with an eye to the past.  Now, as we enter our sixth year, we begin a new phase in our efforts to craft a uniquely Livermore style of wine, reminiscent of the elegant and structured wines that speak of Livermore’s place in the world.  Stay tuned….