It’s a story made for Hallmark Channel: Tired of the hustle in Hollywood, a screenwriter returns to his sleepy hometown, realizes the story of his career was right in front of him all along and decides to tell it through the revitalization of his family’s historic wine business.
It sounds scripted, but that’s exactly what Greg Pestoni has spent the past decade doing. Now, the transformation of St. Helena’s charming Pestoni Family Estate Winery is ready for its premiere.
Pestoni credits famed director and winery owner Francis Ford Coppola for inspiring his move from his native Napa Valley to Hollywood after high school in the 1980s. Since the third grade, he was friends with Coppola’s son, Roman, and recalls watching rough cuts of “Apocalypse Now” on a Betamax before it was released. Napa was a quiet agricultural valley, and he was anxious to get out…