Winemaking

Our hidden gem is the Campovida organic vineyard, located in the little town of Hopland and the home to our family's mighty dreams. Anna and Gary decided to start making wine at Campovida in order to become better stewards of the land and the Hopland community.

Surrounded by over 100 acres of certified organic vineyards, the wildlife and plant species thrive here. It is also the home of our award-winning Viognier, which received numerous awards over the past 10 years (and recently, a 96+/Gold Medal from the North Coast Challenge wine competition). Our Viognier is in our front yard and the Sangiovese is in our backyard; both have been farmed organically for decades.

We are committed to biodynamic farming, where plants grow from the ground in living soil, providing a quality of health and nutrition not possible with chemical fertilizers or hydroponic growing. Through practices including composting and crop rotation, biodynamic farms are able to generate their own fertility.

If there were a phrase that would define Campovida’s winemaking program, it would be “without compromise”. The primary goal of this program is to craft world-class wines grown exclusively in Mendocino County, so we put special attention to the farming practices as it all starts in the vineyard. Quality and not quantity is the key ingredient as our lots range from 50 to 120 cases, allowing the winemaking team to truly focus on each individual lot with care.

Campovida’s winemaking current program focuses on showcasing organic and biodynamic fruit exclusively from our certified organic estate. In the past, we have sourced our grapes from different sub-appellations within Mendocino County such as Yorkville Highlands, Redwood Valley, Potter Valley, and Mendocino AVA. We search for specific grape varietals that excel at each particular appellation and terroir, giving us flexibility in the amount of wines that we can produce. We are proud of the partnerships we have formed over the years with our neighbors, local farmers, and families that have been growing grapes in Mendocino County for decades. These relationships are founded on friendship and a shared commitment to nurturing the land we live on and the community that we are a part of.

The winemaking philosophy practiced at Campovida is minimalistic in nature. The effort starts at the vineyard, picking grapes when they are physiologically mature as opposed to harvesting them when they have gained a specific sugar level while disregarding all other parameters that make a great wine. This method guarantees that we won’t have to “tweak” the wines prior, during or after fermentation due to their original chemistry imbalances, but most importantly, this approach leads to wines that have individuality. During fermentation, we rely widely on the use of native yeast to carry out the fermentations, producing wines that have a sense of place. Moreover, we inhibit white wines from going through malolactic fermentation because we don’t want to mask their fruity character with the buttery aroma of diacetyl, the by-product of malolactic fermentation. Red wines on the other hand do go through malolactic fermentation with the use of native bacteria that is at the cellar, again enhancing that sense of place in them. Also, red wines are the result of the use of only the “free-run” fraction. This means that after primary fermentation has ended, only the wine that falls freely from the tank is put in barrel for aging. We never press the skin left in the tank in order to extract a few more gallons out of it as the “free-run” fraction is of the highest quality and free of any bitter and green tannins often extracted in the “press fraction”. Finally, we age all of the wines in neutral French oak free of any flavors that may impart any oaky characteristics into the wines. We do this on purpose because we want to keep the wines truly to who they are as individuals and with different personalities as well as to showcase the vineyards they came from.

There is not one step in the grape-growing and winemaking cycle that gets overlooked or neglected. Everything we do is done with care and passion, and that makes the difference between a good wine from an amazing wine. Campovida was featured in the list of 52 California wineries you need to visit, and our wine has repeatedly won awards at the San Francisco Chronicle’s Wine Competition. We invite you to enjoy the goodness and beauty in each bottle for yourself, knowing that you are supporting the growers of Mendocino County and this beautiful environment.