RUTHERFORD, Calif. — When Philippe Bascaules arrived here in 2011 to take over as general manager of Inglenook Vineyard, one of the first things he did was to present the owners, Francis Ford Coppola and his wife, Eleanor, a plan for managing and renewing the grapevines. The plan covered the next 50 years.

Such long-range thinking is rare to see in California, where continuity rarely triumphs over fad. Even in Napa Valley, where cabernet sauvignon has long been established as the dominant grape, visionary thinking may encompass a decade.

“My first reaction was, ‘Well, I guess I won’t be around to see the upshot of this plan,’” said Mr. Coppola, 77, the film director and writer. “But I was happy because I know this was something planned in the long term, and I am hopeful that my kids, and the kids of my kids, will be living at one of the treasures of the earth.”

Such a sense of stability comes naturally to Mr. Bascaules, who had spent the previous 20 years in Bordeaux at Château Margaux, the great first growth with an illustrious past stretching 500 years.