Each month, LuxeSF profiles a member of The Luxury Marketing Council. This month we talk with Larry Stone, General Manager of Rubicon Estate, the historic crown jewel in the ever-growing wine empire owned and nurtured by Francis Ford Coppola. Stone speaks candidly and expressively about his hopes, aspirations and daily life running on of the world’s most prominent vineyards and wineries.

LUXESF: Larry, would you mind giving us the highlights of your extensive career in the food and wine industries?

STONE: Before I came to Rubicon, I had a long career in the restaurant industry. I was the General Manager and Sommelier at Charlie Trotter’s in Chicago. I also worked for Four Seasons Hotels and created their corporate wine program. I have also been the recipient of numerous awards for wineries and restaurants, including awards from Wine Spectator and Decanter Magazine, as well as having received an award as the Best Sommelier in the World in French Wine from the French government. I was the first American to win the international title of Best Sommelier in the World in 1988.

I became a board member of the James Beard Foundation about three years ago and helped to reconstitute the board after it went through a period of instability, and am currently on the board of the Court of Master Sommeliers. I’m an accredited Master Sommelier and have helped oversee the education and testing of a couple of generations of sommeliers, being the eighth Master Sommelier in the United States. So I have a long career in the restaurant business, as a sommelier and now in the wine industry.

I was brought here by Francis Ford Coppola to run the estate because he felt that I understood his vision for the estate. Of course, remember that I created a restaurant called Rubicon in 1994, and that was because I admired this estate so much, even from childhood. So it was a great honor when Francis asked me to take over the estate as the General Manager in 2005.

LUXESF: Does your functional responsibility as General Manager include the other wineries that Francis owns, or is it just the Rubicon Estate?

STONE: Only Rubicon Estate. Part of our plan was to separate the two businesses that were completely different in nature. They had grown up together but they had diverged very quickly, partly due to the success of one of the businesses, the Diamond Collection Wines which are non-estate-bottled wines sold at a price point of around $16-20.They are beautifully-made wines, but production is scalable and the wines are sold to a large audience, whereas the wines from Rubicon Estate are limited in quantity, strive for the highest quality possible and are based on an estate-grown model.

LUXESF: How many cases a year is the estate producing?

STONE: It’s in the low tens of thousands of cases.

LUXESF: All of it positioned at a level of quality that far surpasses mass-market wines?

STONE: It’s to be operated at the very highest level of wine-making carried out in California or in the world. Its standard is Bordeaux First Growth rather than California Estate. We are trying to attain a stature that is commensurate with a grand estate, and we consider Rubicon as one of the greatest historic estates in Napa Valley, conceived from its inception in 1880 to produce wines at the highest level of quality without sole regard to profitability-level. It’s a true artisan approach to winemaking.

LUXESF: How many types doe the estate produce?

STONE: We produce five wines at this point, but predominantly we’re a cabernet estate. We were the first estate in California to have merlot and cabernet franc grapes and grow them on a substantial basis for a Bordeaux-type blend. We make two wines that dominate our production. Rubicon is the flagship wine. It is the superior wine from our estate, very unique, and a wine that reflects the specific terroir, characterized by the qualities of one or two vineyard sites in the back property, and from the oldest part of our vineyard as well.

LUXESF: Primarily a cabernet?

STONE: It’s about 95% cabernet now. The other Cabernet wine that we make is called CASK Cabernet. It was created in 1995 when Francis finally reunited the original estate which had been split in the 1960’s. CASK celebrates the traditions of John Daniel, Jr., the man who really perfected winemaking at the estate in the 40’s and 50’s.

LUXESF: Since Francis acquired the winery in full, what have been the primary changes that you’ve experienced in terms of the estate and the product that it produces?

STONE: Well, Francis has been here for more than 30 years. He has always had one goal, which is to make great wine. I think that since he has lived on the estate, the burden of history has become clear to him. He started off by buying a place to live, and he ended up owning an historic landmark estate with great terroir that he feels responsible to uphold and to advance in the tradition of great winemaking. So, there has been a firm commitment to continual improvement. We’ve refined the winemaking. We keep searching for the way to restore the position of the estate in Napa Valley to what it once was, the greatest winery in California .

Since 2002, we have a restored the winery. Wine hadn’t really been made in the old winery since 1966, two years after John Daniel, Jr. sold it, so, what we’ve done is to discard all the non-estate functions, focus exclusively on the estate and refine what we’re doing, making wine only that is grown here. That’s been a gradual process of improvement and enhancement driven by Francis over a 30 year period, but there have been a couple of significant milestones or eras during that period.

The first era began when Francis was seriously introduced to winemaking at the urging of Robert Mondavi in 1977. They had dinner at the Niebaum mansion and pulled an ancient bottle of Inglenook Cabernet out of the cellar. The wine was still stunning and Robert turned to Francis and said, “You have a racehorse. You’ve got to let it run,” and urged him to start making wine here again. At that point, Francis hired industry guru Andre Tchelistcheff as the estate’s winemaking consultant. That period lasted until 1989. In that eleven year period from ’78 to ’89, he replanted a major portion of the vineyard and started making wine in the back property.

Then in 1990, Francis hired Tony Soter, a top consultant from the next generation, who brought on winemaker Scott McLeod. Starting with the 1991 vintage, they were able to really make in-roads, and the next ten years formed an era in which we had an elevated winemaking team and we had a dedication to improving the vineyards. Everything began to fall into place.

Finally in 2002, there were several auspicious events. The first involved the property that had been purchased in 1995, the front vineyard land and the chateau. Even though Francis had owned the land and the vines since 1995, we weren’t able to use the grapes, because of contractual obligations with the former owners. In 2003 we were finally able to use these grapes from the front vineyards for our own winemaking and produce a larger amount of wine made from the estate, allowing us to be financially self-sufficient.

We also rededicated the winery to winemaking. We built a whole new wine fermenting room with open-top oak fermenting tanks from the famous French barrel makers, Taransaud. This instituted a whole new regimen for the winemaking which continues today. In conjunction with the new winery, we began a program, working closely with UC Davis, for measuring the phenolics of the wine during fermentation. Finally, we started work on the caves which were completed in 2004.

The combination of the open-top oak fermenting tanks and the caves, along with the improvements in vineyard management and our phenolics laboratory, have made a significant improvement in the quality, complexity and structure of all our wines.

At the same time, another estate came on the market, the Cohn property, which was situated adjacent to the finest vineyard that we have in the back property, the Garden vineyard, but was never really a part of the traditional wine estate here as created by Gustave Niebaum. That land was purchased by Francis. We actually augmented the original estate with 60 acres of some of the finest vineyard land in California. It was, and still is, the highest price paid for vineyard land in California. Even though we had been in a bidding war with another prominent winery, and paid a high price for the land, we decided it was worth it to retain this jewel in the heart of the Rutherford Bench for ourselves.

LUXESF: H ave you rebuilt and restocked to the maximum extent or are you still in a process of upgrading on the estate?

STONE: A great deal was done from 2002-2004 in terms of investment in the estate. We have also had an extensive replanting program since the Coppolas acquired the property. In ’78 and ’80, there was a lot of replanting. Again under Scott McLeod in 1995 when they were able to regain the chateau and the front vineyards from Heublein, there was a great deal of replanting because the vineyards had not been adequately maintained in the manner that would be suitable for our mission, which is to create great wines. During the mid-to-late '90s, there was another great planting. Right now in terms of vineyard replanting and investment, we’re in a hiatus hoping to let the vines mature sufficiently to regain vine age and therefore elevate the quality of the grapes. In terms of the winery itself, we have a variety of minor projects that we’re considering.

There’s an additional aspect of Rubicon Estate that has to be considered beyond the commercial winemaking considerations. Rubicon is an historic estate that has about 235 acres of vineyards. But there are more than 1,500 acres of forest, river, mountains and streams. Our property line is the skyline, so there’s also the custodianship of the natural environment. The estate has been farmed organically since 1880 commencing with the first owner who believed that “great wine has to come from nature and that we have to be in balance with nature.” He sought to plant 1,000 trees, and we have to maintain that as well. We also have a run of wild salmon that still migrates up our river each year. There is the “naturalness” that we believe contributes to the quality of our wines, to the quality of life and to the environment around us.

LUXESF: I take it that the bulk of the wine that’s being produced right now is coming from grapes grown on the estate?

STONE: We only make wine today from grapes grown on the estate.

LUXESF: The quality of the wine in recent release years particularly that of Rubicon, the flagship label is attracting very favorable reviews.With respect to the process of evaluating the quality of the product, is that on track? Is there a planned strategy or philosophy behind the results?

STONE: Obviously we like to get good reviews from critics, but we don’t want to depend on critics for our commercial success. We want our success to be based on the fact that our wines reflect our terroir and are produced according to the highest quality standards attainable, regardless of fashion in winemaking, or critics’ scores, which can be very ephemeral. From year-to-year, we build a consistency in our clientele by maintaining direct relationships with the loyalists who drink the wine, with long-term fans of the estate, and with the top restaurateurs in the country. We’ve built a following that’s based on personal attention to long-standing consumers and clients of our wine. The approbation and the approval of gourmets and of our long-standing clients is much more important than trying to make a wine to please a few critics in order to generate big scores, and then exploiting those scores by charging higher prices.

LUXESF: Prior to your arrival, Rubicon didn’t possess the greatest reputation among wine aficionados. The so-called cult wines Harlan Estates, Screaming Eagle, etc, were garnering all the ink and the plaudits. Recently, it seems to be recapturing that reputation for greatness. Is it fair to say that there’s a significant progression in terms of the imagery of the estate and its product?

STONE: The vineyard work that we’ve done over the last 30 years, the new regimen for fermentation, the improvements in the winery and completion of the caves is paying off now, with respect to the quality of the wine that we’re producing. I think the wines are just a lot more vivacious than they had been in the past, even though the wines of the past were excellent. When you go back and taste some of the wines from the ‘70s and ‘80s, they were wines that were a little more subtle than today’s market is able or willing to appreciate. They were more Bordeaux-like. They took a decade or so to come around and ripen, but they’ve lasted. They’re there for the long haul. That was always the Francis’ dream, to make a wine like Chateau Latour, a heritage wine that 100 years from now you can open up and say, “This is what Napa can do”. They were nevermerely fashionable wines, and we’re still not trying to make fashionable wines, but we realized that we need to have a little more mid-palate and a little less structure in our wines. We’ve been able to refine the balance and integration of flavors over the years, especially when the new winery was designed by Scott. He was aiming to capture more of the fruit quality, while, at the same time, still producing wines with structure. We’ve improved our understanding of the special quality of our grapes, and our estate’s unique vineyard characteristics, to produce a wine that’s more balanced and more fruit-intense when it’s finally bottled. With the building of the winery and the caves, we’ve now had the tools to really make a quantum leap in the finesse of the finished product.

LUXESF: It’s all coming together!

STONE: We came back to what Gustave Niebaum did when he originally built the winery. The current tanks are virtually identical to the original fermenting tanks that Gustave Niebaum designed -- proportional height to width, open-top, punch-down. It was the right thing to do, and it took us thirty years to figure that out. And now we’re back to that and the wines are really superb. It’s not that we were trying to do something modern; it’s just that we finally realized that the traditional wine-making practices that were originally established here were the best. The proof is that our sales this year and last were very, very strong. We don’t have more wine to sell, but demand has grown so much that what we release sells faster and we have much more pent-up demand that we can meet.

LUXESF: The long-term vision for the winery, for the estate, and for the wine that you produce, what is it?

STONE: I think that everyone who works here is aware of the estate’s history and the high standards that have been set for us to emulate. Our goal then is to make the greatest wine in Napa Valley, a wine that is the greatest representation of this historic estate. Rubicon Estate is a unique property with great terroir. We don’t want to do anything that will betray that heritage.

This week we have a group of connoisseurs coming to the estate who represent some of the greatest names in science, art and commerce in contemporary America. They’re coming for a tasting of Inglenook and Rubicon wines. The oldest one we’ll serve is a ’41 Inglenook, estate-bottled, which is considered by some critics to be the greatest wine ever made in California. It’s still a beautiful, fresh bottle of wine. It’s awesome when you taste it against Bordeaux from the ‘40s and ‘60s, which were some of the greatest Bordeaux vintages ever, and it actually surpasses in complexity and youthfulness some of the greatest names from Bordeaux. We’ll also pour some wines from ’55, ’60 and ’64 from Inglenook -- the Cask wines of John Daniel, Jr. -- followed by vertical of Rubicon from the 1980’s and 1990’s to see the progression of wines and how they’re evolving. The wines from the ‘50s are so remarkable that it just inspires us to continue in the direction that we have been headed.

LUXESF: To what extent does Francis stay intimately involved in the strategy, planning and production or the estate?

STONE: Francis is involved in minute detail in the operations of all of his business ventures, particularly the estate because he also lives here. Basically we look to him for direction for everything that transpires here.

LUXESF: His spirit pervades the culture and the direction of the estate?

STONE: Absolutely, and he knows everything about the estate. He’s excited about it, and he’s very proud of it.

LUXESF: What do you personally love most about the job?

STONE: I’m sitting in my office now, looking at the orange and olive trees that were planted by Gustave Niebaum, and the vineyards which have created some of the greatest wines in the New World during its 130 year history. Being in that historic setting, and working to recapture the stature of the estate, that’s the greatest career call-to-arms, to be able to be a part of this great property and legacy, and to work to restore it to its deserved stature in the wine world is really the most exciting labor of love for me. I derive a great deal of pride in belonging to such an illustrious team that includes luminaries such as Scott McLeod and Rafael Rodriguez, who has worked here since 1952, and still comes to work three days a week. We have people who have worked here and lived here for thirty five years. They have a love of this estate that goes beyond anything transient or monetary.

It’s also such an inspiring physical location. You stand in the vineyard and you’re overlooked by Mt. St. John with all of the wildlife that’s still up there because the estate has been farmed organically from its inception. And knowing the history of those great wines from the ‘40s and ‘50s, and the genius of the owner who created this, those are things that just keep people inspired, me included.

LUXESF: Is this a dream position for you?

STONE: I’m in a position that I never thought I’d be in because this is the greatest historic estate in Napa Valley and one of the greatest estates in the world. I have in my office a picture of John Daniel, Jr. inspecting a bottle of wine circa 1960. I look at that every day. I have an article from the Examiner on Inglenook Vineyard dating from 1890 and it discusses everything that Gustave Niebaum did here. Every day I glance over them and I think, “O.K., I’ve got something important to do today, and I’d better be focused on it. I can’t be distracted by the little things. It’s about the big picture.”

LUXESF: I want to talk about the customer for the Rubicon Estate, for the wine itself. Is there a particular sweet spot in terms of the customer base for the winery’s product?

STONE: I think we want a customer who understands what we’re doing. We’ve been fortunate in that there are quite a few people out there, especially those wine collectors who enjoy complex, structured wines and enjoy wines that age well and who value terroir. That’s our customer. In the case of Rubicon, we prefer people who will lay it down and see what it does. We know that Rubicon is a wine that, fifteen to twenty years from, now is going even be better. It will be different. It will be like old Bordeaux, more mature, and it will have these tertiary floral aromas that have been prized by critics and wine tasters of the past. But the nice thing is that when they’re young, these Rubicon wines are also going to be very intense. We look for a wine collector, a connoisseur, who appreciates wines that age slowly and evolve in the bottle and who also has a respect for the history of Napa Valley and the kind of history that our wine represents in the bottle.

CASK is a different matter. It’s a wine that people can enjoy soon after release. It is a wine for pleasure now, round and supple, with sweet red fruit and toasty, chocolate nuances. It is also capable of aging, but that is only secondary to its immediate accessibility. It is very competitive in quality with other wines from Rutherford and Napa Valley, and is entirely estate-grown, like Rubicon. CASK is more typical of its region, while Rubicon is the product of a unique terroir.

LUXESF: Finally, if there is a message that you would leave our readers with, what would that message be?

STONE: The message would be somewhat like the message that Mouton gave its customers. Baron Philippe de Rothschild proudly said, “We are not first, but we do not deign to be second. We are Mouton.” That referred to their stature and the classification. They weren’t classified as a first growth until 1974 when they were finally acknowledged for their accomplishments. Prior to that, they were always officially considered the best of the second growths. However, they could never consider themselves second to anything, and in fact succeeded in many years to make the finest wine in Bordeaux , regardless of classification. I think that’s an important lesson for anyone in the luxury goods business or in a business where there’s a lot of craftsmanship in the product. You have to be true to what you are. You have to make the best product that you can for what you are and not try to make it conform to some temporary demand of the marketplace. That might mean that there will be periods in which you’re not appreciated for what you’re doing, because you’re going against the fashion of the moment, but ultimately if there’s going to be any longevity to your product, and any integrity in what you’re doing, you have to remain true to what you are. I think this estate has done that in spades.