ABSTRACT
Erle Martin is vice president and general manager of Niebaum-Coppola, and as such is responsible for making the Coppola wine business work on a day-to-day basis. Like winemaker Scott McLeod, Martin is in his mid-30s, but unlike most everybody else at the winery, he is first and foremost a businessman, an entrepreneur. Erle does, however, have a thoroughgoing, almost envious grasp of the mechanics of the fine wine business, and because of that fact, he knows that he is in charge of the business end of a winery that has the potential to produce the finest wine in the United States.
