Compared to the countries in Europe and Asia, the United States
is a young nation.
So I suppose we can be forgiven if we have a somewhat skewed
view of what it means when we say something is old or
venerable.
Compared to the countries in Europe and Asia, the United States is a young nation.

So I suppose we can be forgiven if we have a somewhat skewed view of what it means when we say something is old or venerable.

For instance, we stand, gazing slack-jawed at Sutter’s Mill, site of the 1848 discovery of California gold, marveling at how long ago that was. We get goose bumps thinking about how people lived in old Colonial Williamsburg in Virginia, settled in 1699.

The California Mission chain founded by Father Junipero Serra and his brethren had its beginnings in 1697 with Our Lady of Loreto in Loreto, Baja California Sur, Mexico. Gazing upon that ancient adobe structure, it’s easy to get lost in the mists of time.

But an Italian would shake his head and laugh at such nonsense. You want old? I’ll give you old. Let’s look around Rome. How about the Arch of Constantine, completed in 315 A.D.? The hulking Castel Sant’Angelo on the Tiber River, with its secret escape route for popes, was built in 139. The masterful, eye-fooling dome of the Pantheon was rebuilt in 125. And perhaps the most famous of all Roman ruins, the Colosseum, was begun in 72 A.D. and finished in 80.

Wandering around Italy and gazing at these noble human endeavors, an American feels somewhat embarrassed. After all, we’re such a big deal now on the world stage, and these guys were erecting huge stadiums almost 1,700 years before our country became the United States of America – a handle, by the way, based on an Italian guy’s name.

And so it is with our wine industry. Two thousand, two hundred and sixty-six years after Greek conquerors built a temple at Segesta, Sicily, George Calvert Yount planted a vineyard in Napa Valley, in what is now known as – surprise! – Yountville. A few years later, in 1861, Charles Krug established the first commercial winery in the valley.

By the time Chuck’s operation got started, the Antinori family had been producing wine in Tuscany for close to half a millennium. Giovanni di Piero Antinori joined the Arte Fiorentina dei Vinattieri, a corporation that brought together the region’s best wine producers, in 1385.

Today, 26 generations later, the company that bears his name is run by Piero Antinori and his three daughters Albiera, Allegra and Alessia.

Piero is one of his country’s most respected winemakers and the family business is one of its largest producers of fine, quality wines, specializing in what we know as “Super Tuscans.” Antinori is credited with creating this wine.

A recipe for Chianti Classico was developed in the 19th century by Barone Bettino Ricasoli, a winemaker whose family had been in the business even longer than Antinori’s, going back to 1141. The dominant grape was Sangiovese, blended with red grapes of lesser character (such as Canaiolo and Mammolo) and two white grapes (Malvasia and Trebbiano). Antinori wanted to make a richer wine, and he did so by eliminating the white grapes. Because it did not conform to the recipe, he had to change the name, and it became Tignanello, the name of the vineyard. He later added Cabernet Sauvignon to the mix, and “Super Tuscans” were born.

Piero has a California connection. He owns the 1,200-acre Atlas Peak Vineyards in the Napa Valley, where he has experimented with growing Sangiovese grapes.

The winemaker has been in a partnership with Allied Domecq Wines, a huge holding company that hold a diverse portfolio of brand names. In addition to wine labels Clos du Bois, Buena Vista, Haywood Estate and J. Garcia (yes, that J. Garcia, as in Jerry, as in Grateful Dead. He seems to be worth more to marketers now than he ever did when he was alive.) from Sonoma County, Allied Domecq owns Atlas Peak and Mumm Napa.

According to Carmel restaurateur Rich Pepe, a friend and business partner, Antinori is planning to take out the Sangiovese and replace it with more traditional California varieties such as Cabernet and Pinot Noir. Pepe says that the Sangiovese grapes have not been particularly successful, and that the change is a sound business decision.

Pepe owns two restaurants, Café Napoli and Little Napoli. One day, while visiting his friend at his vineyard, he noticed that Piero had an abundance of grapes. He asked if he could buy them in order to try his hand at winemaking and Antinori not only agreed, he offered to collaborate on the wine. The result is Vino Pepe Vesuvio, a robust vintage that was specially crafted to compliment the spicy southern Italian family recipes featured at Pepe’s restaurants.

For now, the wine is available only at those two establishments and at Peppoli at Pebble Beach, in the Inn at Spanish Bay and annual production is limited to 500 cases. That may change when Atlas Peak undergoes replanting, and more of what Rich calls “high altitude fruit” becomes available.

By the time Rich and Piero were bottling the 2002 inaugural Vesuvio, Rome had been a city for 2,755 years, having been founded on Palatine Hill in 753 B.C. And one thing’s for sure. Just like today, when people commemorate a momentous occasion like the birth of a new wine or the founding of a mighty empire, they pop a cork and celebrate great things to come … and great things that were.

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