Sierra Foothills Wine Visits, May 2023
I’ve posted a portion of a report on late-May wine visits to two wineries in the Sierra Foothills. The full version of this report is on the Grape-Nutz.com website:
(http://www.grape-nutz.com/kenz/23_sierra.html)] Sierra Foothills Visits, May 2023
I don’t need much of an excuse to make a trip to Sierra Foothills wine country – among my favorite California wine regions to visit – and I found two good reasons to head there for the day in late May. One reason was to pick up a case of wine I’d ordered that would be split among several friends and myself, and the other was to check out a brand-new winery that I’d heard about, launched by a winemaker I’ve known for awhile. I met up with my friend Larry Stein in the East Bay and I drove from there, past Sacramento and on to the old mining town of Placerville along Highway 50. After finding a parking spot just off of Placerville’s quaint Main Street – lined with small shops and a few cafes, plus a great old-time hardware store – we walked a short distance to our first wine destination of the day.
Larry and I visited just two wineries on this trip – Cedarville is a regular stop for me when I’m in the area, but this was my first visit to the recently-opened tasting room of Cappelli Wine in Placerville. A write-up of our visit there is below.
Cappelli Wine
I’d read an article in April by wine writer Mike Dunne about a new wine tasting room that had just opened right along Main Street in Placerville – Cappelli Wine. I’ve known owner/winemaker Marco Cappelli for awhile and had visited him in 2017 at Miraflores Winery in El Dorado County, where he was the winemaker. Knowing that Marco is an excellent winemaker and that he was starting his own label after decades of working for other producers was reason enough to visit his new tasting room, but Mike Dunne’s description of Marco’s operation there was equally intriguing.
I’d arranged to meet with Marco prior to his regular tasting room hours, and Larry and I arrived outside the door just a couple of minutes before Marco did. I saw Marco walking up the sidewalk and didn’t recognize him at first – the photos in Mike Dunne’s recent article showed him with long hair (as a number of people had done, he’d grown it longer during the pandemic years) but it was much shorter now. He said it was finally time for him to get it cut! He opened the door and led Larry and me inside. The building is a handsome one, located toward the upper end of the central part of town, and it had been home to a number of widely-different businesses since it was built around 1895. There were a number of good-sized tables in the tall, airy space, and I couldn’t help noticing the antique bottles on shelves along one side. Many of these were originally bottles for Angelica wine – this is a distinctive fortified sweet wine that originated in California and is made from Mission grapes, and Marco is widely-regarded as the finest maker of Angelica in the state.
Marco became seriously interested in winemaking while in college, and he earned a degree in enology from UC Davis in 1984. Following this, he gained practical experience working for a year in Italy and six months in France before returning to California, where he took a position at Saintsbury Winery in Carneros. While there, he met legendary vintner André Tchelistcheff, who soon recommended Marco to Clarke Swanson, who was launching Swanson Vineyards in Napa Valley. Marco became the winemaker at Swanson – working with André Tchelistcheff’s guidance for the first few years – and he stayed there for 17 years before moving to the Sierra Foothills in 2004. I asked Marco why he chose to move to El Dorado County after he’d decided to leave Swanson. He said that the affordable price of property as well as the quality of wines from the region – and potential for even better wines from there – based on the area’s soil and climate were significant factors.
Marco had purchased the noted Herbert Vineyard in the Fair Play region of southern El Dorado County shortly before moving there, with the plan to farm it and perhaps build his own winery on the property. Knowing that this alone wouldn’t pay the bills, at least in the short term, Marco became the winemaker at Miraflores Winery and also took on consulting winemaker positions for a number of other wineries – he’s been involved with production of around 120 wines each vintage for consulting clients. Marco continues to consult for Miraflores as well as a few producers who make wine at their facility, though his main focus now is making wine for his own label. He acknowledged that it proved to be more difficult to make the vineyard pay for itself than he’d anticipated, and the fall 2021 Caldor Fire – which forced the Cappelli family from their home for some time – ended up being the deciding factor for Marco and his wife Belinda to sell the vineyard. They moved to a house in Placerville, just a short walk from the tasting room.
Marco and Belinda actually bought the tasting room building before they moved to Placerville, as Marco was planning his own winery business by early 2021. He told Larry and me that permits for work on the building and for it to also be a bonded winery took longer than expected, so it wasn’t until early spring this year that it finally opened. Marco noted that there are currently only three wine tasting rooms in town plus a small wine bar – Larry and I both mentioned that we thought there is the potential for more tasting rooms along Main Street there.
This is no ordinary winery tasting room, though, and the concept behind how it’s run may well be unique in California. A few years ago Marco took a year off from winery work to spend a year with Belinda and their kids in Italy – he said that he’d mainly spent time in the Marche region on the eastern side of Italy, where his family came from. While he was in Italy, he found many wines were readily available in towns directly from the small-scale winemakers there – the wines were good, inexpensive, and local. Marco said this tied in with lessons he’d learned many years ago from André Tchelistcheff, who often preferred modest wines to the expensive wines made more to impress people than simply for enjoyment. Marco wants to make these modest everyday wines that anyone can afford, rather than trying to “make a statement” with the wines – he’s aiming to highlight the variety and growing region and to keep the winemaking in the background. He feels that he can produce quality wines that display a sense of place at a lower cost, so they can become as integral a part of everyday meals as the food itself, and not just for special occasions. Marco said that the wine shouldn’t be the most expensive thing on the dining table.
The other part of the Cappelli Wine concept is the most novel one for California. Marco noted that in Italy, Spain, and some other parts of Europe, wine customers could bring in their empty bottles to the local shop to have them refilled there straight from the barrel. Since having barrels of wine onsite to use for this purpose at the tasting room is somewhat impractical, Marco brings in 15-gallon kegs of wine to achieve the same goal. There are six kegs on hand to fill new bottles or refill those that his customers clean and bring back. The system is set up so the bottles are first sparged (given a blast of nitrogen gas to help flush out oxygen), then filled from a dispensing spout hooked up to the keg below, and capped with a cork “bar top” closure that then receives a protective plastic sleeve. Every bottle that Marco uses is identical – Burgundy-shaped with light green glass to make filling easier – and even all of the labels are identical, simply showing the contents as “California Grape Wine”. The bar tops, each with a plastic part on top of the cork, are given small circular stickers on top to identify each individual bottle (Marco may change this to a sticker added to the bottle itself at some point). While a handful of California wineries will fill customers’ bottles or jugs from large tanks as part of their wine program, I’ve never run across a winery that exclusively uses kegged wine to fill every bottle that goes out the door – all filled or refilled on demand. Encouraging customers to reuse the bottles and caps is one way Marco is trying to keep costs down so the wine is more affordable – and it’s good for the environment as well.
Marco is aiming to keep the wines he makes local, using vineyard sources within a 90-minute drive. They’re currently mostly sourced from smaller family growers the Sierra Foothills. Wines are produced in small lots, mostly though not all from single vineyards, and made at the Miraflores facility. Some of the wines are made from purchased fruit that Marco vinifies, while some start as bulk juice or bulk wine purchased from custom crush clients at the Miraflores facility in order to keep costs lower. Marco is starting out with a range of varieties and styles, and he plans to tailor the wine lineup to focus mostly on ones that prove to be more popular – he told us that so far the Chenin Blanc, Zinfandel, and Barbera are doing the best. The small lots ensure that the wine lineup at the tasting room will change fairly frequently. While Larry and I were tasting the current wines there, Marco noted that he’s almost out of the Chardonnay and will switch shortly to a Vermentino.
I’d mentioned that a key goal of Cappelli Wine is to keep the wines affordable, and because of the way that Marco produces and packages them, he’s offering the most inexpensive lineup of quality wines I’ve seen in California. White wines are all $12/bottle, while reds are $14/bottle. The only exception to this is the Cappelli Angelica – Marco’s special sweet wine – which sells for $40 for a 500ml bottle. A tasting flight of the six kegged wines is only $5, and any of those wines is available for $5/glass as well (the Angelica is available for a bit more). Customers are encouraged to clean and return their bottles and bar top caps, for a $2 discount per bottle to refill. Marco told us that about 1/3 of his customers have been refilling bottles so far, and one of his wine club members came in while Larry and I were there to refill a number of them. He told us that he may switch from the bar top closures to glass closures in the future as they should work better for re-use. In addition to the six kegs, there are currently three 500-liter puncheons behind the tasting room – these contain the Angelica as well as a sweet Muscat Port-style wine that still needs more time (more on that one later). Marco does keep a couple of cases each of bottled wines on hand to make things quicker and easier for first-time customers. He recommends drinking his wines within a few months so they will retain their freshness.
Marco sat down with Larry and me and we tasted through the current lineup of kegged wine as well as the Angelica. We started with 2022 Clarksburg Chenin Blanc – this was fermented in stainless steel and aged for three months in neutral oak. Bright aromas of pear and stone fruit with citrus in support, this had medium-light body with lively mouthfeel and a long, tasty finish. Next was the 2021 Sierra Foothills Chardonnay, sourced from a vineyard in Calaveras County. This underwent native primary and malolactic fermentation (typical for Marco’s whites), and was made in some newer French oak barrels and aged for about 15 months. Displaying pear and apple notes and a touch of oak spice in the background, this had a richer mouthfeel than the Chenin Blanc.
Moving on to reds, we tasted the 2021 Pinot Noir, from fruit sourced from the same Calaveras County vineyard as the Chardonnay, and aged in neutral oak for 18 months. With cherry and plum fruit along with spice and oak undertones, this had a medium-light texture and mild tannins. We followed that with 2020 Sierra Foothills Zinfandel – the Zin came from two vineyards, one in Calaveras County and one in the Fair Play region of El Dorado County, and there’s a little Petite Sirah from the Cappellis’ old vineyard blended in. Showing raspberry and darker fruit aromas along with a brushy herbal note and a hint of stony minerals, this was medium-light bodied with enough structure to make it a fine food wine. A very pleasant Zin that strikes a good balance – neither too ripe nor too lean.
The 2020 Fair Play Barbera was next. The fruit was sourced from a one-acre block of Barbera grown in decomposed granite soil at about 2,400-foot elevation, and the wine was aged in neutral oak for 30 months. This displayed bright ripe cherry aromatics along with touches of spice and stony minerals in the background. Medium weight on the palate, the characteristic Barbera acidity was in evidence but it didn’t stand out as it sometimes can with this variety – a nicely balanced wine. Our last kegged wine was the 2020 Cabernet-Based Red Blend – a blend of 50% Cabernet Franc and 25% Cabernet Sauvignon from Calaveras County, and 25% Malbec from Fair Play. Not surprisingly, this was a bigger wine showing a darker fruit profile plus some herbal notes, with a richer mouthfeel and somewhat grippier finish.
Of course we had to finish up with sweet wine. The NV California Mission Angelica is a fortified wine made from Mission fruit from old vines at Rinaldi (formerly Eschen) Vineyard in the Fiddletown region of Amador County – the Mission vines there may date back as far as the 1860s. Marco noted that the Mission from Rinaldi tends to be more tannic than that from some other vineyards, and this slows down the intentional oxidation process that gives the wine a character not unlike a Tawny Port. For this reason, it takes many years of aging – with minimal topping or racking – to become what Marco is aiming for it to be. He’s created a “mother blend” of about 25 barrels of Angelica that he uses as a solera system of barrels with blends of different vintages, and he uses these to top up barrels periodically. Beautiful nutty stone fruit aromas with caramel and smoke notes, a rich mouthfeel, and a finish that went on and on. It’s certainly quite sweet, as this style of wine should be, but there’s enough structure to keep it from being cloying – really an exceptional Angelica.
One final wine was a barrel sample of 2022 Muscat Port-style wine – made with 50% each Muscat Canelli and Orange Muscat, the fruit was fermented on the skins and then fortified. This wine is still at a very early stage of its development, and Marco intends to let it oxidize in barrel similar to what he does with his Angelica. Strong orangepeel aromas along with peach and floral elements, this was not as sweet as the Angelica but had a fair amount of grip on the finish at this stage – it will be interesting to taste this again in a few years to find out how it develops with more barrel age.
Keep in mind that the Cappelli wines will change fairly often due to the small lots produced of each one, so unless you visit soon, there’s a good chance that you may have an entirely different lineup to taste (except for the Angelica). Most of the wine is sold direct to consumer, while some also goes to keg wine programs for a couple of local restaurants. The system of filling bottles one by one from kegs is geared toward a relatively small-scale local customer base – wines are available only at the tasting room – and Marco noted that he wants to keep things small. He thinks that his annual production probably will never be more than about 2,000 cases but he’ll have to see how things work out – this is such a new concept for California so he’s not yet sure how successful it will be.
What a fun visit with Marco Cappelli at his new tasting room! Marco is a friendly and engaging host, and he’s eager to help visitors understand what he’s working to achieve with his wines. Few if any other wine regions in California could work for such a novel concept as what Cappelli Wine is doing. Other than the Angelica, these are not wines that will knock your socks off, but that’s not the goal here, and they offer considerably more interest than you’d expect for the price. The wines are made for drinking now and enjoying every evening with dinner, and the different wines offered should match well with a variety of dishes. All the wines were enjoyable, and my favorites were the 2022 Clarksburg Chenin Blanc, 2020 Sierra Foothills Zinfandel, 2020 Fair Play Barbera, and NV Angelica. Cappelli Wine is so new that they don’t even have a website yet, though it should be online sometime this summer. The visit to Cappelli Wine was a real eye-opener – with a concept that may be unique in California, Marco Cappelli is finding a way to bring quality everyday wines to local customers at unheard-of prices for the state. I highly recommend a stop at their tasting room in Placerville if you’re in the area.