Pop the top, grab a straw: It’s champagne in a can

WASHINGTON – Filmmaker Francis Ford Coppola, a California vintner by avocation, is making Americans an offer he hopes they won’t refuse: He’s asking them to drink his champagne out of cans.

The new bubbly – named Sofia, after Coppola’s moviemaking daughter – comes in individual servings of about six ounces. It’s offered in a demure raspberry, plastic-lined can with a straw attached to the side just like Juicy Juice. It retails for $5 a pop or $20 for a four-pack, which comes in a hexagonal foil carton, also raspberry, with circles like bubbles cut out of its sides.

“It’s a very cool presentation of a decent wine,” said Maria Elena Gutierrez, 28, sipping Sofia at Mie N Yu, a swanky Georgetown club.

It’s not just the wine that’s being presented, said Saeed Bennani, Mie N Yu’s beverage manager. “You’re drinking champagne out of a can with a straw. It’s different. So you’re different,” Bennani explained. “What’s in the can almost doesn’t matter.”