Wine plays starring role in new Coppola film

Wine plays a starring role in Francis Ford Coppola’s wife Eleanor Coppola’s new film Paris Can Wait, with Coppola consulting with Maria Helm Sinskey on the food and wine pairings.

Eleanor Coppola directs Diane Lane and Arnaud Viard in Paris Can Wait

Enlisting the help of Sinskey, culinary director at Robert Sinskey Vineyards in the Napa Valley, among the food and wine pairing to feature in the film are rack of lamb with Côte-Rôtie reds, red mullet with Didier Dagueneau’s Silex from Pouilly-Fumé, and prosciutto and melon with Châteauneuf-du-Pape.

Coppola told Wine Spectator that with all the darkness in the world, she was keen to make a light-hearted film that would make viewers thirsty for wine.

“There are so many films out there that cover such dark subjects that I wanted to make a film that you could go in to enjoy, and come out wanting a nice glass of wine,” she said.

Loosely based on Coppola’s own experiences, Paris Can Wait tells the story of Anne (Diane Lane), who agrees to go on a road trip with suave Frenchman Jacques (Arnaud Viard) from Cannes to Paris after her moviemaker husband scuppers their plans for a romantic getaway.

In the food filled and wine-soaked flick the pair eat and drink their way around Provence and Burgundy en route to Paris.

“I wanted to show the different aspects of French food, paired with the wines of the regions,” Coppola told Wine Spectator.

In one scene, Jacques reveals his geeky wine obsession to Anne, who, rather than being impressed, stifles a yawn.

“I had to cut back on the esoteric facts he knew about the soil that grew the grapes. I was afraid that the audience would get too bored with it,” Coppola admitted.

Paris Can Wait is the first feature by Eleanor Coppola, who has made a number of documentaries, including Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker’s Apocalypse about the making of 1979 Vietnam war epic Apocalypse Now, directed by her husband.

She also directed The Making of Marie Antoinette, the 2006 historical drama starring Kirsten Dunst, directed by her daughter Sofia Coppola.