Cal-Ital Tales (Four of Four Parts)
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| "Il Ponte Fra Due Terre" one of the Cal-Ital varietal made by "L'Uvaggio di Giacomo" |
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When he left Mondavi in 1997, Moore had a long-standing job offer to make Cal-Itals for Bonny Doon Vineyard. Instead, he decided to start his own winery with the difficult name of l'Uvaggio di Giacomo ("the blend of James.")
L'Uvaggio currently makes eight different Cal-Itals, including one of the few Vin Santo dessert wines produced in the United States. Moore buys distinctive, heavy bottles and has stylish, attention-grabbing labels. With the exception of his overly oaked Sangiovese, the wines range from drinkable to pretty good, yet he finds it just about impossible to get them into stores.
Bottom line rules
"Distributors are tightening their belts and saying, 'We're going to weather this storm. We don't need this next new thing'," Moore says. "Everybody's going for price, price, price. Variety is not important."
To supplement his income and get medical benefits, Moore took the job at Bonny Doon last year, where iconoclastic winemaker/owner Randall Grahm is delighted to be in a category from which so many others have run. Italy is the birthplace of dozens of wine grape varieties that get little notice even in their homeland, and Grahm has long been a champion of the unusual.
Italian varieties easy to grow
"I love these varieties," says Grahm. "Growing Italian grapes is very easy, especially in this climate. But right now we're doing it backward. We're growing the most famous grapes, rather than the ones most suited to California."
If Grahm can't sell them as varietals, he blends the wines into his popular Big House Red. That sets him apart from winemakers who have to try to sell Cal-Itals that distributors don't want.
"Distributors are allergic to new products," he says. "People are so conservative these days. You have to argue with them and persuade them that it's worth trying."
Jim Clendenen is another Cal-Ital true believer. He founded the Italian Varietal Project in 1986 as a way to preserve varietals that were losing favor in their native land.
"I had a visit in the mid-1980s from a group of Italian winemakers," he says. "They were all looking to make Cabernet and Chardonnay. That was the only way to get attention then. I set about holding onto some of the grape varieties that people were running away from. For a while, it worked."
Clendenen, owner of Pinot Noir powerhouse Au Bon Climat in Santa Barbara County, started Il Podere dell' Olivos as a separate venture for Cal-Itals. He also owns a label called Vita Nova that he uses just for Sangiovese.
"By the mid-'90s, I was making 13 Italian varieties," he says. "It's amusing and it's fun. But the real recognition has gotten worse rather than better. Everyone talks about drinking alternatives to Chardonnay, but they stop at Sauvignon Blanc. Nobody has any time for Viognier. Imagine the time I had selling Tocai Friulano for seven years."
Yet Clendenen is characteristically optimistic.
"I remember when you couldn't give away red Zinfandel," he says. "In 1991 -- that's not that long ago -- Zinfandel had to be pink. That's where Barbera is right now. It's going to take one small twist of imaging. I don't know how that's going to happen."
A sales success
At least one winery claims complete success in selling Cal-Ital varietals. However, you won't find its wine in any stores or restaurants.
Viansa Winery in Sonoma is famous among Wine Country tourists as that place with all the mustards to taste. Located in a choice spot on Highway 121 at the southern gateway to Napa Valley, Viansa gets a constant flow of relative neophytes eager to taste some wines they've never tried.
Viansa currently makes 13 different Cal-Itals, including rare varietals such as Vernaccia, Aleatico and Teroldego. It also produces an array of blends, for a total of about 65,000 cases annually of 30 different wines.
"We're constantly educating people about these wines," says president Jon Sebastiani. "We find Americans are yearning for something different."
Viansa bucks convention
Sebastiani says consumers are unwilling to buy a wine they haven't tried. From the day it opened its doors in 1990, Viansa has sold its wines only at the winery and through its catalogs and wine clubs, and has no plans to change.
"If an obscure varietal were to sit on a store shelf or a wine list, it would not move unless it was a waiter's favorite wine," Sebastiani says.
Even at the winery, the more familiar names -- Barbera and Sangiovese - - are the most popular, he says.
"The lesser-known wines such as Freisa haven't done as well," Sebastiani says. UC Davis viticulturist Andy Walker says California could offer a comfortable home to many currently unplanted Italian varietals, particularly those from the hotter, southern part of the state.
"A lot of things from Sicily have pretty good body and pretty good acidity. They could do well here," Walker says.
But each would need a zealot to support it.
| W. Blake Gray is a San Francisco-based writer. Originallyu published on  ©2004 |
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