Malcolm Jolley talks to winemaker turned distiller Natalie Dale of The Family Coppola…
After traveling the world working the grape harvests, Natalie Dale settled in her native Northern California to make wine. She ended up at Francis Ford Coppola’s family of companies working at Virginia Dare Winery. But her career as a winemaker took a bit of an odd turn when Coppola and his wife Eleanor recruited her to be part of a new project, Great Women Spirits. Great Women Spirits is the Family Coppola’s venture into distilled drinks, each one named after a pioneering woman from a place the spirit is known from. So, the potato vodka is named after the Polish Countess Walewska, and the gin, which was launched recently into the LCBO, is named after Lady Ada Lovelace, who is credited as writing the first computer program in the 19th century.
I tried a glass of the Coppola Ada Lovelace Gin ($99.85, LCBO# 10724) last week when its importing agent, Noble Estates, hosted me and small number of media and trade to launch lunch at Anthony Rose’s Fet Zun restaurant featuring Natalie Dale. It tasted very much like a gin made by wine makers: in balance and aromatically complex, but also true to a proper London-style gin. Before the event got going, I shot the short video interview below on the patio facing busy (and noisy) Dupont Street. In it Dale explains more a out the project and how the Ada Lovelace Gin is made and how to enjoy it perfectly.
Email versions of this post won’t show videos. Please click here to see the video at GFR.
