Nello Olivo Winery

The journal.

Wine, winemaking and the odd thing we found interesting, written by the people who pour and cook here. Share what you like.

Pieces

From the tasting room

Yeast, yeast, everywhere

Ian Liszt on the overlooked organism that turns grape juice into wine, and why you already know it from Apple Hill.

When it comes to winemaking, there's nothing as important as the grapes. The grapes are the foundation of what the wine is. They provide nearly all the flavor, and the identity. There is one other thing that is necessary for the grapes to go from being simple, sweet juice and transcend into a luscious wine. It's overlooked by...

Read the full piece → Ian Liszt

From the kitchen

Risotto, the ancient Italian appetizer

Chef Tim Costner on how rice found a home in the Po Valley and why risotto's creaminess comes from technique, not cream.

Risotto is one of those dishes that feels as though it must have existed forever: rice, broth, butter, cheese, and a wooden spoon. But its story is really the story of rice finding an unlikely home in northern Italy. Rice originated in Asia and reached Europe through centuries of trade and migration. It was known around the...

Read the full piece → Tim Costner

Wine, lightly

What Kind of Wine Does the Pope Drink?

Pope Leo XIV's red, Benedict's Fanta, a Rioja with the papal crest, the Vatican's young vineyard and the short rules for altar wine.

Ask around the tasting room what the Pope drinks and you will get guesses. Some of it is on the record. Pope Leo XIV, elected in May 2025, grew up in Chicago and spent more than 20 years in Peru. A former employee told the German paper Neue Osnabrücker Zeitung that at his table "a good glass of wine is more likely to be served...

Read the full piece → Nello Olivo Winery

Wine, lightly

Two Mirkos and the Sabering Record Wars of 2026

A chef sabered 91 bottles of sparkling wine in one minute for a Guinness record. Three months later a dentist opened 118. Both did it for charity.

If you have ever wrestled a cork out of a bottle of bubbly and felt quietly proud of yourself, look away now. On 22 May 2026, at the Winkler sparkling wine house in Cornaiano, a village in the town of Eppan in Italy's South Tyrol, a chef named Mirko Rainer took a saber to 91 bottles of sparkling wine in 60 seconds and set a...

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Harvest

Harvest on the hill: an early, quick 2026

Bins on trailers before dawn, the first fruit in two weeks early, and a winemaker who says the pace feels like juggling flaming torches. Harvest 2026 in the foothills.

If you have driven Apple Hill or Shenandoah Road lately, you have probably passed a trailer of half-ton bins and a picking crew out before the sun. Harvest 2026 has arrived in the foothills, and by every neighboring account it arrived early. The year started in a hurry. A record-breaking heat wave in March pushed vines into...

Read the full piece → Nello Olivo Winery

Wine facts

Ten things about the Italian grapes we grow

Ten facts about Sangiovese, Sagrantino, Primitivo, Barbera and two Italian cousins, from a Sierra foothills winery that grows them.

Where do these Italian grapes come from, and why do they taste the way they do? Ten answers. The first eight are about grapes we make wine from in El Dorado County; the last two are Italian cousins worth knowing. 1. Sangiovese means "blood of Jove," from the Latin sanguis Jovis, a grand title for a grape that tastes mostly of...

Read the full piece → Nello Olivo Winery

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The journal.

Fall is in the air.

Yeast, yeast, everywhere

Risotto, the ancient Italian appetizer

What Kind of Wine Does the Pope Drink?

Two Mirkos and the Sabering Record Wars of 2026

Harvest on the hill: an early, quick 2026

Ten things about the Italian grapes we grow

Get the next one in your inbox.