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A Chance to Win a Cross-Country Pizza and Wine Tasting Tour by Private Jet

July 2025

Francis Ford Coppola Winery

Photo courtesy of Francis Ford Coppola Winery

Pizza fanatics have a new dream trip to covet: Francis Ford Coppola Winery, the iconic Sonoma County estate behind the award-winning “Diamond Collection” wine brand, announced today that it will offer a private plane tour of legendary U.S. pizzerias to the winner of its annual “Perfect Your Pizza” competition.

Entries open today for the contest, which invites pizza lovers to submit an original pizza recipe and wine pairing for the chance to win a once-in-a-lifetime private tour of top pizza purveyors in New York City and Chicago, or $25,000 cash.

Now in its fourth year, Francis Ford Coppola Winery’s “Perfect Your Pizza” competition has become a compelling draw for pizzaiolos and wine lovers nationwide. Each year, hundreds of passionate contestants submit their best original pizza recipes and Coppola wine pairings in hopes of earning pizza-and-wine pairing supremacy.

For 2025, Coppola is taking it to the skies, offering one lucky winner and their guest an expenses-paid culinary adventure starting in New York City, where they’ll tour the city’s top pizzerias with world-famous pizza historian and judge Scott Wiener, of Scott’s Pizza Tours. From there, they’ll hop aboard a private plane to Chicago for a pizza tour with James Beard Award™-winning food journalist and pizza guru Steve Dolinsky, founder of Pizza City Fest. The trip will include VIP access to legendary pizza destinations in each city as well as behind-the-scenes wine and pizza tastings, affording the winner a deeper understanding of America’s most iconic pizzas and the wines that pair best with them.

Four finalists and their guests will receive an expenses-paid trip to the Francis Ford Coppola Winery in Sonoma County, California this October to compete in a live cook-off for the Grand Prize before a panel of experts. Judges include Coppola winemaker Andrea Card and “Perfect Your Pizza” Chief Judge Dan Richer, a globally recognized pizza master, James Beard Award™ finalist and the author of New York Times-best-selling cookbook, The Joy of Pizza: Everything You Need to Know.

“Pizza was an integral part of Francis Coppola’s vision for his winery from its beginnings,” noted Gabriela Becker, vice president of marketing for Francis Ford Coppola Winery. “We’re excited for a fourth year of exploring and perfecting the pairing possibilities of pizza and wine, and of celebrating what great pizzas and great wine have in common: the ability to bring pleasure and connection through authenticity and craft.”

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Submissions for “Perfect Your Pizza” are open July 1- August 31, 2025. Contestants may enter by visiting www.francisfordcoppolawinery.com/perfect-your-pizza and providing their original recipe, a Coppola wine pairing and story inspiration for their creation. For complete rules, see Diamond-Perfect-Your-Pizza-Contest-Official-Rules-2025.pdf.