Some of the finest Californian wines ever made are to be put up for auction in New York later this month.

Extremely rare bottles of Inglenook, one of the most revered names of the Napa Valley, will go under the hammer at Christie's in the Rockefeller Center on September 24th.

The bottles come from the private collection of the Inglenook owner, Godfather director Francis Ford Coppola.

Highlights of the sale include two bottles of the 1941 Inglenook Cabernet Sauvignon, which American critic James Laube once described as "one of the greatest red wines ever made".

Auctioneer Christie's suggests it "can take its place" alongside such Bordeaux wines as 1945 Chateau Mouton Rothschild, 1982 Chateau Lafite Rothschild and 1961 Chateau Latour, giving the bottles an estimate of $8,000 (£5,000) to $12,000 (£7,500).

Also featuring in the sale will be a 1935 Inglenook, as well as a 12-bottle vertical of "key vintages" from the years 1946 to 2008.

The proceeds of this particular lot will be donated to the Shigeru Ban Architects & Voluntary Architects Network, which is helping to restore housing to areas of Japan destroyed by the tsunami that hit the country in March.

Christie's wine specialist Charles Antin said of the sale: "All of the wines … were acquired by Mr Coppola when he purchased the estate in the 1970s and have remained undisturbed … [they are] the true crown jewels of the Napa Valley."

Each lot will be accompanied by a hand-written note from Coppola, and will be stored in a wooden case made specifically for the sale.

Coppola bought part of the Inglenook estate with the proceeds he made from the Godfather in 1975, before acquiring the rest of the vineyard 20 years later.

Yet the director did not manage to get his hands on the Inglenook brand name until April this year.