ROBERT MARK KAMEN

His early move into Hollywood screenwriting seemed almost effortless, and it enabled him to buy his eponymous Sonoma estate on impulse in the 1980s. Elin McCoy meets the man behind The Karate Kid and Taken, to reveal why he believes making wine is his real destiny

- Elin McCoy

At Kamen Estate’s tasting room in downtown Sonoma, Hollywood screenwriter and vintner Robert Mark Kamen, 72, is padding around in flip flops, cargo shorts and a bright blue T-shirt emblazoned with the greeting ‘Hola!’ In his left ear is an earring, at his right is a mobile phone. He’s short and slight; his uncombed hair is now grey. Quotes from his famous screenplays – ‘Never open the package’ (The Transporter) and ‘I will find you and I will kill you’ (Taken) – shout from the wall behind the long bar.

As he pours his latest releases of Cabernet, Syrah, Viognier, and Sauvignon Blanc, he launches into the story of how he got into the wine business. It could be one of his screenplays: filled with romance, action, disaster, and passion, and he tells it very well.

From screenwriting to wine

‘I grew up in an orthodox household in the Bronx in New York City, went to NYU, and got a Ph.D. at the University of Pennsylvania,’ he rattles off rapidly while fussing behind the bar. After graduating in the early 1970s, he wrote a novel and showed it to a cousin who knew a film director, who said that if he turned it into a screenplay it might make a good movie.

He sold that screenplay to Warner Bros for $135,000 in 1980. To celebrate, he met a friend in Sonoma. ‘We took some wine, rolled some joints, and hiked up a mountain. There was no road, no electricity. I suffer from impulse control disorder, so when he said the property was for sale, I blew the money on 280 acres [113ha] just for the view. I still love it.’