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The Return of Cal-Ital

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The Return of Cal-Ital The return of Cal-Ital By the early 2000s, Cal-Ital was dead. It was almost impossible to sell California wine made from Italian cultivars. During the following decade consumer interest in the phenomenon remained minimal and few sommeliers would consider such wines. Recently, however, there has been a renaissance of the category. But the return of Cal-Ital hasn't been easy. It's proven a study in resilience. It's also meant a shift in philosophy. While much of the original Cal-Ital movement arose from producers making wines such as Sangiovese as a side project to their more central Cabernet focus, today's Cal-Ital has meant a more complete shift in thinking. In the last several years, a handful of newer Italian-focused California labels have been launched, bringing breadth to a conversation that for a decade was maintained by only two or three producers. Digging out of the Cal-Ital problem California's wine industry was historically rooted in Italian immigrants bringing cuttings from their home country but after phylloxera and Prohibition, plantings shifted predominantly to French cultivars. Before 1980 varieties such as Sangiovese existed only in the historic Italian-Swiss Colony of the North Coast, along with other Italian varieties in vineyards maintained and expanded by Seghesio. Barbera had a presence throughout the state but did not enjoy the prestige of other Italian varieties. It was seen as an able blender rather than as a varietal wine in its own right. In the 1980s and 1990s, however, a rush of interest brought Sangiovese to Northern California, made most famously by producers such as Robert Pepi; Atlas Peak in Napa Valley, co-owned by Tuscan winemaker Piero Antinori; and Ferrari-Carano in Sonoma. By 1997, 2,500 acres (1,012 ha) of the grape were spread across the state but the variety was primarily being made by vintners treating it as a side project while they focused on French varieties. Quality suffered. The unique needs of Italian wines were inimical to the techniques familiar to most California producers of Bordeaux varieties. By the start of this century, the almost two decades given to North Coast Sangiovese seemed inadequate to stabilise quality and critics were severe. Although producers in Southern California, such as Santa Barbara County's Palmina and Clendenen Family Vineyards with labels such as Il Podere and Vita Nova were also making Italian-inspired wines, critics looked to North Coast examples and declared Cal-Ital an experiment that had failed. Led by negative reviews, consumer interest all but disappeared. Interest in anything Cal-Ital was so low that, as Uvaggio co-founder and winemaker Jim Moore puts it, 'you couldn't even get arrested'. Moore had been a winemaker for Mondavi in the 1990s assisting with research and development of new brands. In the early 1990s, he led a tasting for the Mondavi winemaking team showing wines from throughout Europe with the idea that the team would develop new side projects. In the midst of the tasting, he realised all the winemakers were fighting over who would make Rhône varieties. No one was looking to the wines of Italy, so Moore took a chance and said he'd work with them. As a result, he established and made the wines for the Mondavi brand La Famiglia di Mondavi in the 1990s. After this he decided to start his own project. Leaving the pre-eminent California producer, Moore began making Italian varieties on his own in 1997, securing placements in top restaurants such as Berkeley's Chez Panisse and Yountville's French Laundry for his Sangiovese. By the mid 2000s, however, sales were difficult. Even so, Moore believed in the Italian concept and joined with partner (and Purple Pager) Mel Knox to launch the value-driven, Italian focused label, Uvaggio. 'I was proud we were 100% Italian-focused from our inception', Moore says, but he was never unaware of the difficulties of the Cal-Ital category. 'I figured if people were going to try them, the wines should be below $20'. With Moore's experience at Mondavi, he stands as one of the few winemakers in California to stick with Italian varieties from the early 1990s to today. Palmina, too, struggled to survive the Cal-Ital slump. 'Those were really dark times, to be honest', Steve Clifton (pictured above right) of Brewer Clifton says. In 1995, when Clifton started Palmina, there were no other producers in California devoted entirely to Italian vine varieties. Mondavi had started his La Famiglia line with Moore relying on fruit sourced from growers also cultivating other varieties. Still, recognising something in the Santa Ynez Valley's unique combination of maritime influence with sun exposure, Clifton believed Piemontese varieties could work. It took time to convince growers to plant Italian vines, however. Finally in 1995 Clifton succeeded in finding a grower, the Honea family, to establish the first entirely Italian post- Prohibition vineyard in California. He launched his label out of a love for Italian food and wine culture and devoted it entirely to northern Italian varieties. By the end of the 1990s Palmina gained a foothold in the market, only to be hit by a massive drop in sales after 2000. 'Steve is the first to really embrace the whole philosophy [of Italian food and wine culture]. The wine is just one part of it', Brian Terrizzi of Paso Robles label Giornata says. Winemakers such as Terrizzi and Massican's Dan Petroski in Napa Valley both credit Clifton with paving a path for newer labels such as their own focused on Italian varieties. It was Clifton's persistence and creative thinking that opened the way. With lack of consumer interest, sommeliers and buyers generally refused to even taste Cal-Ital wines. Determined to connect, Clifton had a unique idea. He began hosting late-night wine tastings in major markets throughout the United States. The idea was to pull in sommeliers wanting to unwind after their dinner shift by offering them a taste of some of Italy's best producers. 'The idea was to build credibility for Palmina by association. People wouldn't necessarily try our wines on their own. So I would set up tastings blind with Italian producers from midnight to 2 am around the country to help connect with the sommelier world'. Sommeliers were invited to taste blind a mix of traditional and modern Italian wines mixed with some of California's best examples, Palmina always included. Before the wines were revealed, sommeliers were expected to offer their views of the best wines aloud in front of their peers. The concept worked. Sommeliers would inadvertently class Palmina with traditional Italian wines only to discover their mistake and, as a result, find room for them on their wine lists. Over time, the strategy helped Palmina build inroads throughout the United States. In Northern California, during the mid 2000s, many of the producers who had made Sangiovese on the side turned away from the variety, replanting vineyards and instead doubling their efforts with Cabernet. George Vare, however, took a different approach. Vare believed the Cal-Ital problem rested in too many producers jumping on a bandwagon without giving enough attention to quality. Along with business partner Michael Moone, Vare started Luna Vineyard & Winery in Napa Valley in 1996. At the time, the pair had analysed the market and recognised the same lacuna noted by Clifton. No California wineries were devoted exclusively to Italian varieties. So Moone and Vare purchased a 44-acre (18-ha) Chardonnay vineyard at the southern end of Napa Valley's Silverado Trail and immediately grafted it to Pinot Grigio, later also establishing Sangiovese. Interested in understanding the best of Pinot Grigio, Vare travelled with his winemaker John Kongsgaard to the best regions for the variety in Europe. Not until they reached Friuli did they feel they'd found somewhere where climate conditions could give insight into Napa possibilities. They began returning to the region regularly. At the end of the 1990s the duo connected almost accidentally with the likes of Gravner, Simčičand Radikon and in the midst of it discovered Ribolla Gialla. Enthralled by the variety, Vare took suitcase cuttings back to California in 1999 and grafted over his own home vineyard of Pinot Grigio, establishing 2.5 acres (1 ha) over the next two years in Napa's Dry Creek Canyon. Soon afterwards he also added Friuli's signature white grape Friulano. Due to changes at Luna, he separated from the winery in the early 2000s and began his own small-production label Vare focused on experiments with Ribolla Gialla and Friuli-inspired white blends. George also invited young vintners such as Arnot-Roberts, Forlorn Hope, Massican, Ryme and Matthiasson to vinify small lots of Ribolla Gialla from his home vineyard. Wishing to avoid the issues he saw with Sangiovese, Vare selected vintners he thought would work distinctively with the variety. Vintners Steve and Jill Matthiasson credit Vare with not only inspiring their own work in wine, but also paving the way for newer producers devoted to Italian varieties. Steve explains, 'George helped open the door to other [more unusual] Italian varieties. George lived through the Cal-Ital thing with Luna and was still a believer in Italian varieties here in California. So, with Ribolla Gialla, he put a lot of time into identifying wineries that would work with the variety and do something interesting with it. George refused to give budwood or sell wine to people he thought would bastardise it and go down the same path with it as Sangiovese. When George went for it with Ribolla Gialla, he had a role in reopening the door to other Cal-Ital varieties.
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