I have a confession to make. I am not a movie person. I can’t pinpoint the reason – maybe sitting in a dark, crowded theater (pre-COVID, obviously) makes me nervous. Maybe it’s the time commitment… which is stupid because I work in theatre (-RE not -ER, heathens). Maybe I’m overwhelmed by the sheer number of films I haven’t seen that I don’t know where to start. So I usually just lie and fake my way through conversations. Oh yeah, of course I’ve watched The Godfather… who the heck hasn’t seen The Godfather by the time they’re in their thirties and work in the arts?! As I’m writing this, I’m realizing maybe I should make time for this one.
Anyway, now that you know one of my darkest secrets, let’s talk about this wine! So, confession number 2 coming in hot… I always avoided Coppola wine because I thought it would be gimmicky. Pedestrian wine designed to lure in the masses with a celebrity name. But in a moment of “why not?” in Target earlier this week I added it to my cart. How can I be an arts and a wine person if I’ve never seen a Coppola film or had a Coppola wine? It’s just too much to bear.
Which brings us to the wine. The Black Label Claret is one of Coppola’s prize wines… which I kind of figured? I mean, you don’t put gold net around your okayest wine. And if you didn’t know – and I didn’t, so there’s that – claret is a term originally coined by the British to describe Cabernet-based Bordeaux blends. The French don’t exactly love it when you throw around the Bordeaux name (thanks, France), so these styles of wine are often labeled as Claret or Meritage (which you know j’adore). The more you know, right?
I am typically willing to admit when I was wrong, and I will do so here. I am sorry I avoided Coppola wines for so long. This easy drinking wine goes down smooth on a Sunday night. It almost calms my anxiety for the week ahead, too, which is really saying something given the magnitude of the week we’re facing. Notes of strawberry and blueberry take you to the neighborhood of almost sweet but not quite, which is exactly where I would build a house. A tasty oak finish, the result of 14 months of aging in French oak, leaves me wanting more.
Does it leave me wanting a Francis Ford Coppola movie marathon? Maybe not, but I think I could finally be convinced to give The Godfather a go.