by Ester Mobley, San Francisco Chronicle, December 8, 2017
California, according to Kevin Harvey, has never gotten Italian-inspired wines quite right. He plans to change that.
“So many Cal-Ital projects have failed,” the vintner says. “At the low end, it’s not differentiated from the available cheap Italian wines. At the high end, nobody’s really tried.”
Harvey is not an obvious candidate for a Cal-Ital revival. In the last decade he’s become a hero to the Burgundy-worshipping set, thanks to the ethereal Pinot Noirs he makes under his Rhys Vineyards label in the Santa Cruz Mountains — the result of rigorous geological study and meticulous vineyard plantings. The Rhys Pinots have attracted an eager waiting list of customers and rhapsodic reviews from critics. “The wines aren’t just great; they’re significant,” wrote former Chronicle wine editor Jon Bonne of Rhys in 2011…