The California Winemaker Rescuing Old European Grapes From Obscurity

As a twentysomething, Tegan Passalacqua regularly went tramping across California wine country. While growing up in Napa, he became interested in wine, and, after earning a degree in viticulture at Napa Valley College, he worked as a technician at wineries in France, New Zealand, and South Africa. By the time he ascended to vineyard manager at California’s Turley Wine Cellars Inc., a midsize label known for its busty zinfandels, he was ready for a challenge. “I loved my day job, but I still wanted something that I can stand behind and know, ‘This is me,’ ” he says.

Passalacqua had become familiar with some of the more obscure European varietals that grow in the state’s sandy-­soil hinterlands—Mataro, carignan, and trousseau noir—which produce wines that are “on the more feral side,” he says. For the most part, the grapes were either being sold off for blends or bottled into small-run wines with little public profile. “Here are these old, great vineyards that have something other than zinfandel,” he says he thought at the time. “Why don’t I try making wine from them?”