San Francisco Chronicle - (Sunday)
2018 winemakers to watch
Meet the rising stars who are poised to change West Coast wine
Alison Thomson Age: 39
Location: Santa Barbara County
Watch her because: Her label L.A. Lepiane makes a convincing case for Italian varieties in California’s Central Coast.
Alison Thomson might be in danger of overshadowing herself. As the assistant winemaker for Two Wolves Wines, the estate owned by Alecia Moore, a.k.a. the pop star Pink, she’s involved in one of Santa Barbara County’s most high-profile new wine projects. But anyone who enjoys the Two Wolves wines would be remiss not to seek out Thomson’s personal label, L.A. Lepiane, a leading interpreter of Italian grape varieties in California.
“I’d dreamed of making my own Nebbiolo for a long time,” says Thomson. Stints in Italy during college and grad school — she got her master’s degree in viticulture from U.C. Davis — introduced her to the pleasures of Italian food and wine. In 2006 she snagged a harvest internship at Ettore Germano, a celebrated winery in Barolo, which the tannic, floral Nebbiolo grape calls home.
But finding a way to make great Nebbiolo — or any Nebbiolo, really — back in California proved a difficult proposition. “People aren’t into Italian varieties down here,” Thomson says. She settled in the Santa Barbara area, working for Rhone specialist Sine Qua Non, then honing her palate for Cal-Ital wines at Palmina for four years. By the time Thomson was ready to make her own wines, in 2013, she’d learned from Palmina owners Steve and Crystal Clifton where pockets of Nebbiolo and its companion grape, Barbera, were hiding along the Central Coast. She has since emerged with her own distinctive style for these grapes, based on energetic aromatics, approachable tannins and fruity generosity.
“I’m not trying to make a low-alcohol Nebbiolo,” Thomson says. “I’m trying to make something that’s pleasurable, reflective of the variety and drinkable with less than 10 years of aging.”
The biggest surprise for Thomson while launching her wine label was the discovery that her great-grandfather, Luigi Antonio Lepaine, had established a winery in Hollister in 1935. It was a family secret: Although she’d heard that Lepiane, an immigrant from the Calabrian village Piane Crati, had made basement wine, Thomson never knew that he’d taken it commercial until she researched old bond permits and found a label for the L.A. Lepiane Tokay, a fortified wine from Lodi grapes.
Sadly, Lepaine got colon cancer and died in 1939. “He never really got the winery off the ground,” Thomson says. Eighty years later, she likes to think she’s gotten it off the ground for him.
Try Alison’s wines: The L.A. Lepaine Walker Vineyard Barbera 2016 ($28) is aromatically arresting, wafting baking spice and roasted coffee beans, with a savory palate that’s grounded in black currant. Thomson’s vibrant Sisquoc Vineyard Nebbiolo 2013 ($45) is her calling card, but the one-off Bee Sweet Vineyard Nebbiolo 2013 (14.2%, $45) is also a beautiful expression of the variety, with layers of rose petals, bright red cherries and earth, firm with clutching tannins. In addition to Italian varieties, Thomson also makes a lovely, light-bodied rendition of Grenache from the Black Oak Vineyard ($38).