Coppola Sues Over Faulty Wine Closures

by Deidre Woollard (RSS feed)
Dec 9th 2009 at 6:01PM

Oxidized wine can be a nightmare for any winemaker. Francis Ford Coppola's winery is suing Vinocor, the maker of specialized screw caps and custom bottles for the Coppola's Encyclopedia wine series. The wines were created to showcase varietals that best represent the culture and traditions of different winegrowing regions and have distinctive beaker-like bottles. Coppola's team says that defective bottles and caps ended up ruining 55,000 cases of wine.

Francis Ford Coppola Presents is taking on Vinocor USA, saying that they paid $685,000 for the packaging but that the first shipment had bottles with chipped glass and caps that had uneven threading and were bent. According to Courthouse News Service, Coppola has said that he complained about the first shipment and Vinocor promised it would fix the problem. Coppola says he ordered another 100,000 screw caps and another round of bottles, but they were also defective. The bottles and caps leaked and allowed air in, causing oxidation and tainting the wine. Coppola's winery wants a return of money spent as well as unspecified damages.

Tags: coppola winery, CoppolaWinery, francis ford coppola, FrancisFordCoppola, lawsuit, wine