Q&A: Rich Frank and Leslie Miller
The couple-in Hong Kong to promote Frank Family Vineyards at last month's Vinexpo Asia-Pacific - talk to Vanessa Yung about wine and romance
Rich: "I've always enjoyed wine. When we bought our house in Napa [California] in 1990 it was not to be in the wine business but because it was a nice second house that was close to Los Angeles, where I was working [as president of Walt Disney Studios]. It has vineyards and everybody wanted to buy my grapes. The first couple of years we sold the grapes to other wineries and then we started making our own wine."
Rich: "When we started we only sold to people who visited the winery. As we began making more wine, we realised we could sell it throughout California. Then we decided to sell to other places in the United States and Canada. We came to China last August to introduce our wines to Shanghai, Beijing and Hong Kong. We're growing - we'll probably reach 100,000 cases this year - but that's still small."
Leslie: "The chardonnay, pinot noir and zinfandel were very popular [here], whereas where we come from, cabernet is what everybody loves the most."
Rich: "Chardonnay and pinot noir match up great with the food here. What is interesting is that few people really know the zinfandel grape. When we serve it, they love it. It's a misunderstood wine in the US. It was the first wine that was made in California but it was never developed right. Now we make it like we do a cabernet, with all French oak, and we leave it in the barrels long enough for it to really develop."
Rich: "I always say there are a lot of similarities. You can't make good wine without good grapes; you can't make good TV shows or movies without a good script. In the wine business, you need a winemaker who takes over and controls it; in the movie business you need a director who does that. The winemaker picks the barrels, grapes and all that; the director picks the actors, locations and all that. Both of them take about a year to make and both of them have to be marketed. In wine you do tastings; in movies you do previews, show coming attractions and commercials. There are a lot of similarities in the overall thought processes."
Rich: "A great steak and a big bordeaux style wine. I like the complexity and [the meat] stands up to that."
