Inglenook (winery)


Inglenook is a winery that produces estate bottled wines in Rutherford, California, in the Napa Valley.

History

The winery was founded in 1879 by a Finnish Sea Captain Gustave Niebaum. Niebaum's employee Hamden McIntyre was not an architect but he designed gravity flow wineries for Inglenook and Far Niente along with other wineries of the decade. Niebaum died in 1908 and the winery was shut down during Prohibition. Upon repeal of Prohibition, Niebaum's widow, Suzanne Niebaum, reopened Inglenook and brought in a viticulturist and an enologist to upgrade the winemaking system. Niebaum's great-nephew, John Daniel Jr., took over operations in 1939 and, by the 1940s, Inglenook's wines once were again declared by many to be the best in the Valley.
More than of the property were acquired by Francis Ford Coppola in 1975 with profits of his film, The Godfather. The brand name and the remaining 94 acres, including the historic winery, were bought by Heublein, Inc., which began making lower quality wines produced elsewhere under the Inglenook label. Heublin was later bought by RJR Nabisco, then sold to Grand Metropolitan in 1987. Heublein sold the winery to the Canandaigua Wine Company in 1994. Canandaigua consolidated winemaking operations elsewhere and sold the remaining acreage and winery to Coppola in 1995. In the French tradition, Coppola combined his name with the original owner, naming the facility Niebaum-Coppola Estate Winery. Coppola later renamed it the Rubicon Estate Winery. In January 2008, The Wine Group announced that it would purchase Almaden Vineyards, the Inglenook label, and the Paul Masson Winery in Madera, California from Constellation Brands for $134 million in cash.
On April 11, 2011, Francis Ford Coppola acquired the iconic Inglenook trademark, paying more, he said, than he had for the entire estate and announced that the estate would once again be known by its historic name, Inglenook.