Francis Ford Coppola Launches Virginia Dare Winery Honoring Lost Colony
Legendary director Francis Ford Coppola (The Godfather trilogy, Apocalypse Now, Bram Stoker’s Dracula) appeared on NBC’s Today Show this week to promote the launch of his third winery, the new Virginia Dare Winery in Geyserville, California.
In the three-minute interview, Coppola talks about what attracted him to Virginia Dare and how he has grown from filmmaker to winemaker.
There are four wines that Coppola is producing that pay tribute to The Lost Colony, the real life story of the first English child born in America and the country’s oldest unsolved mystery, retold nightly here on the Outer Banks, in the nation’s longest running outdoor symphonic drama, performed on Roanoke Island on the actual site of original settlement.
NBC’s Joe Fryer sat down with Coppola for the Today Show segment, which you can watch in the player below, and then scroll down to read the official press release!
After more than a year of speculation, American Pioneer Wine Growers (APWG) is proud to officially unveil the name of its new property, Virginia Dare Winery. Located in Sonoma County’s Geyserville, Virginia Dare Winery pays homage to the influential people, places and stories that are part of the origins of early American winemaking. Over the past year, APWG has released a series of four wines – The White Doe, Manteo, Two Arrowheads and The Lost Colony – each revealing a different aspect of the Virginia Dare legend ultimately culminating in the unveiling of the new winery name.
“The myth of Virginia Dare always intrigued me, and as a child I remember the Virginia Dare wine because of the pretty blonde girl on the label and the ‘Say it again, Virginia Dare’ jinglethey used to advertise on the radio,” said Francis Coppola. “My goal is to revive the wine brand so that it isn’t lost to future generations. The winery’s new home in Geyserville is the ideal location in the heart of American wine country to tell the origin stories of American wine.”
Virginia Dare was the first English child born in the New World to colonists in 1587. Virginia’s fate became a mystery after her colony, now referred to as the Lost Colony, vanished from Roanoke Island in the late 1500s. Legend has it that she lived among the Native Americans and grew into a beautiful young woman trapped in the middle of a tragic love triangle when she was turned into a White Doe and ultimately killed. On the very spot where she bled and died, a grapevine sprouted with its fruit stained red. According to the legend, this is how the white wine of America became red wine. The grapevine is widely believed to be the 400-year old Mother Vine, reportedly the oldest cultivated grapevine in North America which still exists today — a clipping of which will soon be planted in Virginia Dare Winery’s estate vineyard.
The story of the Virginia Dare Winery began with North Carolina’s first commercial winery, Medoc Vineyard, which opened in 1835. Two businessmen, known as the Garrett brothers, purchased the property in 1865 calling it Garrett & Company. They began producing the Virginia Dare label which quickly became one of the nation’s top selling wines. With the start of Prohibition in 1919, Garrett & Company was forced to move, first to Brooklyn, New York, and then to Cucamonga, California, where the business transformed into the Virginia Dare Winery. It was one of the first wineries to sell wine after the repeal of Prohibition in 1933 and was considered a booming business for much of the late 40s and 50s, but eventually saw turmoil and nearly faded into history.
Today, the revitalized Virginia Dare Winery celebrates the genesis of American winemaking. Along with the spellbinding Virginia Dare story, it pays homage to the mythical and mysterious characters which grace the labels of the wines – The White Doe, Two Arrowheads, Manteo, The Lost Colony, and soon Virginia Dare Chardonnay and Virginia Dare Pinot Noir, both sourced from Sonoma County’s Russian River Valley. For more information, please visitwww.VirginiaDareWinery.com.
ABOUT AMERICAN PIONEER WINE GROWERS
American Pioneer Wine Growers, American wines since 1835, pays tribute to America’s winegrowing heritage. The existence of the 400-year-old scuppernong “Mother Vine” growing on Roanoke Island, North Carolina is intertwined with the story of one of the first English settlements in the New World, which later mysteriously disappeared without a trace, leaving nothing but a spellbinding story of mythical and mysterious characters – each of which grace the labels of our wines. Crafted with grapes from the finest viticulture regions in California, our wines are rich with characteristics befitting an American legend: Pure. Natural. Distinctive. Learn more by visiting Virginia Dare Winery located at 22281 Chianti Road, Geyserville, CA 95441.
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