Francis Coppola seems comfortably settled into middle age: his hair and beard unabashedly white, his girth expansive under a loose shirt. With the afternoon temperature hovering around 100 degrees in Napa, California, he sits at his desk in a cottage on the Niebaum-Coppola estate with no gleam of sweat on his brow. In his early sixties, Coppola emanates a thoughtful tranquility, perhaps the result of having achieved enormous accomplishments in two diverse fields.

Best known as one of the foremost film directors of his generation, he's a five-time Oscar-winning director, writer, and producer. More than three decades worth of films include The Godfather trilogy, Apocalypse Now, Bram Stoker's Dracula, Jack, and John Grisham's The Rainmaker.

In parallel to his film career, Coppola has also been laboring in the vineyards, restoring to glory the Napa estate that now produces serious world-class wines, notably the Rubicon Cabernet Sauvignon. Coppola stumbled into the wine business by accident. He achieved success through careful design, unrelenting perfectionism, and inspiration from his Italian ancestors. They, and the example of a certain Finnish sea captain, continue to motivate him.

Italian traditions and cultural legacies form the core of Coppola's life. He believes that each generation of children, as it grows, inherits rich gifts of family heritage. Each succeeding generation adds to that heritage and passes it on to children and grandchildren, a work in progress enriched at every step.

Mr. Coppola grew up in New York and is the second generation of his family to be born in the United States. The Italian influence on his childhood was strong. His mother and father were both the children of southern Italian immigrants and spoke Italian. Coppola says his parents might as well have been born in Italy given the traditions they kept.

The Coppola family legacy includes both Italian traditions and the arts. Francis's father, Carmine Coppola, was an accomplished musician and composer. His maternal grandfather, Francesco Pennino of Naples, was a songwriter. He expects that his own two children, Roman and Sofia, will also carry on family traditions, and indeed they are doing so already: both maintain film careers and participate in formulating the goals of the wine estate, where they grew up and which they eventually will inherit.