19 May 2007 - 11:58Caparone Winery

One of my favorite discoveries thus far on this trip has been walking into the Caparone Winery tasting room and meeting Marc Caparone. As we pulled into the driveway one of our group exclaimed, “This is a tasting room? It looks like a warehouse,” to which I replied, “That’s why we’re here.” Al Caparone, and now his son Marc, has been making winery under the Caaprone label since 1979 and they still only make about 3000 cases a year. Their’s is a two man operation with Al slowly handing over the reigns to Marc. They make five wines: Sangiovese, Aglianico, Merlot, Cabernet Sauvignon and Nebbiolo. They have been working with Italian varietals from the beginning and introduced Aglianico to the US in 1992. They are committed to creating, “Interesting, high quality red wines, sold at an honest price” and they prove it by selling all their wines at the same $14 a bottle.

Alas, I can’t order wines from Georgia but I’m having four bottles each of the Sangiovese, Aglianico and Nebbiolo sent home for further inspection. These are all on the light end of the medium body spectrum and very acidic, not what you would expect for a Nebbiolo, perhaps, but very friendly, nonetheless. I look forward to getting to know them better.