Cal-Ital Tales (Second of Four Parts)
W. Blake Gray - April 17, 2004
- The Sangiovese (part 1)
- The Cal-Italian tasting room (part 3)
- Selling Cal-Ital is a tough row to hoe (part 4)
Warning signs ignored
 Atlas Peak's early struggles could have served as a cautionary tale, but didn't. After Pinot Noir and before Syrah, Sangiovese was the grape of the moment in the mid- to late 1990s with winemakers, growers and marketers -- but not critics and consumers.
"We're all eating Italian," says Clendenen, who owns Burgundian-style producer Au Bon Climat in addition to the artisanal Il Podere dell'Olivos. "Maybe 60 to 70 percent of our takeout food is Italian. How can Bordeaux varieties still be popular and Italian varieties that go with the food we're all eating not be popular?"
Part of the reason is competition with winemakers who have been making Italian varietals a lot longer -- the Italians. Some California Sangioveses priced at $25 or more sit on the shelves with Chiantis selling at half the price.
"I never really understood the concept," says Giancarlo Paterlini, sommelier at the San Francisco restaurant Acquerello (Water Color). "They make the wines with the California style, with the new oak. Heavy-handed. Why? Why do that? They try to duplicate something at a higher cost than the original."
The rush to Cal-Itals attracted plenty of smart business people. Robert Mondavi created a separate winery, La Famiglia (The Family), as well as a joint venture with Italy's Frescobaldi family. Michael Moone, former president of Beringer Vineyards, in the early 1990s started Luna Vineyards -- a Cal-Ital winery with investors that include golfer Arnold Palmer and singer Huey Lewis.
"Luna was a vision I had way back in the '80s," Moone says. "I would go to Italian restaurants and there's a bottle of wine on every table. We wanted our bottle of wine on that table."
Sensing a boom, growers rushed to plant the grape. By 2002, there were 2, 560 acres of it in California.
"First there's a spark of interest in a varietal like Sangiovese," says Kevin Barr, owner of Redwood Empire Vineyard Management in Sonoma County. "That spark kind of goes around. People plant it. Wineries buy it. It's a couple years before (the wine) gets released. It takes the public awhile to decide whether they like it."
Sangiovese is not an easy grape to maintain properly.
"It's another one of those beast vines that gets huge, with lots of extra growth," says Andy Walker, a viticulturist at UC Davis. "It should be on weak soils, shallow soils, in cooler sites. The same thing is true in Italy. I'd try it in moderate climates on hillside sites. Monterey County is great, down close to the bay. But low yield is important, which makes it difficult to make a profit."
The vines also require a great deal of attention at harvest, says owner Frank Altamura of Altamura Winery & Vineyards in Napa Valley, whose Sangiovese is one of the best in the state. "Sangiovese doesn't ripen evenly, so you get a lot of unripe fruit with the ripe," he says.
Wilfred Wong, e-commerce cellar master for Beverages & More, says winemakers deserve as much blame as growers. Like most Italian varietals, Sangiovese is meant to go with food, so it should have plenty of palate- cleansing acidity -- unusual in California wines because the grapes generally get so ripe here. Acidity stays high only in areas with cool nights, but even there, California's sunny days usually make wines less acidic than those of Europe. Moreover, the wine should not be particularly heavy.
"A lot of times in California, people start off making a powerful wine," Wong says. "Look at Chardonnay right now. There's a backlash against heavy oak and heavy malolactic (fermentation). With Sangioveses, they're too alcoholic and they're overextracted."
Too much oak a detractor
Jeff Popick, general manager of Chameleon Cellars in St. Helena, agrees, saying, "Cal-Itals have really suffered from an excess of oak. We're used to slapping wood on everything here. You need to be a little more judicious. I remember some of those Sangioveses from the mid-1990s. They were solid 2-by-4s. "
There are some good Sangioveses made in California these days, but wineries that deal with other Italian varieties say Sangiovese was the wrong headliner for the Cal-Ital movement. If marketers and critics had paid more attention to Barbera, which Smerling calls "the best varietal you can grow in America, bar none," the domestic market might not be as chilly for the rest.
"To me, Cal-Italia is not that viable at the moment," Wong says. "There are some really good success stories out there with Barberas and Moscatos. There's been some success in Arneis. But the focus is too strong on Sangiovese. "
Indeed, Clendenen says, "I can sell more $50 Pinot Noir than I can $12 Barbera."
"Thirty years ago, the French said that we couldn't grow Cabernet or Chardonnay in California.'' adds Benesserre Vineyards winemaker Chris Dearden, who makes Sangiovese, Pinot Grigio and a rosé of Sangiovese in Napa Valley. "Now we know that's a bunch of bunk. The clones that were being used 10 years ago and the way the wines were being made were not in keeping with good- quality Sangiovese. If you don't have good fruit and you don't have a good site, it's a silk purse-sow's ear situation."
Better clones have since been planted, and production techniques have improved. Dearden says his production costs are high for Sangiovese thanks to low yields, hand-harvesting and a gentle hand in treating the fruit.
"People are going to have to pay for (California Sangiovese) or it won't make sense to make it anymore," he says. "People are willing to spend $150 on a great Brunello. And that's 100 percent Sangiovese. I don't know that we will get $150 a bottle in the near future, but I think $40 to $50 is attainable (the current release, 2000, sells for $25). We also make some good Zinfandel and Syrah and they're easier to sell. But our passion lies in being able to produce something that's among the first to have people say, 'Hey, that's pretty good.' "
Many winemakers and growers hope that Pinot Grigio is the grape to turn around the Cal-Ital category's negative perception. Unlike Sangiovese, Americans are already familiar with the name, thanks in part to heavy marketing from Italy. And the strong euro has helped drive up prices of the imports with which California winemakers must compete.
"Pinot Grigio has been growing very quickly," says Beringer spokesperson Allison Simpson, whose winery makes 45,000 cases of it at prices under $10 per bottle under the Beringer and Stone Cellars labels. "It's a product that people in the general market are excited about right now. People understand that Pinot Grigio is crisp. It's refreshing. It's pleasing on the palate."
Savvy marketing
One of the savviest companies in California, E. & J. Gallo, is betting heavily that Americans will not consider Sangiovese and Pinot Grigio to be from the same family. In the last two years, Gallo created a new Italian import label, Bella Sera (Beautiful Evening), of which spokesman Tim McDonald says now sells more than 1 million cases of mostly Pinot Grigio.
Gallo also imports nearly a million cases of Ecco Domani and Turning Leaf Pinot Grigio and has ramped up production at its California properties, including MacMurray Ranch, Rancho Zabaco and Gallo of Sonoma, McDonald says.
"I don't think consumers are as disappointed with Pinot Grigios as they were with Sangioveses," McDonald says. "Consumers are happy with the wine. It's simple. You can drink a couple (glasses). It's not one we sit and ponder, like Chardonnay." The Pinot Grigio market, he adds. "is as healthy as can be."
Bob Cappuccino, the founder of Consorzio Cal-Italia who now imports Italian wines in New Jersey, says the Consorzio's infrastructure is still there, just waiting for the market to catch up.
"We didn't leave any baggage," Cappuccino says. "The Web site is still there. It could easily be restarted. It would take someone who really wants to push the agenda."
W. Blake Gray is a San Francisco-based writer.
Originallyu published on  ©2004 |
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