Napa Valley grows more than three dozen wine grape varieties, but it is famous for exactly one. Cabernet Sauvignon accounts for a little over half the valley's vineyard acreage, and the economics that follow from that dominance quietly decide what else gets planted. Sangiovese is the clearest casualty. Of the more than 500 wineries in Napa County, only around 34 make a Sangiovese or a Sangiovese-based wine, nearly all in tiny quantities.
That makes it one of the most interesting things you can order in a Napa tasting room. Here is why so little of it exists, and where to find the wineries still making it.
The Cal-Ital boom, and the crash
Sangiovese arrived in Napa on a wave of enthusiasm. Through the 1980s and 1990s, the Cal-Ital movement had California vintners planting Italian varieties in earnest, and Sangiovese was the flagship. Plantings climbed through the decade and peaked in 2001 at close to 580 acres.
Then it collapsed. The problem was not the grape but where and how it went in the ground. A great deal of that acreage was planted on fertile valley-floor soil using weak clonal material, a combination that gives high yields of thin, sharply acidic wine with little colour or character. Sangiovese is a variety that rewards poor, well-drained, lower-vigour sites, and in Napa those sites were already spoken for. Buyers tried the wines, were unimpressed, and moved on. Large producers including Robert Mondavi eventually abandoned the variety altogether.
The underlying arithmetic finished the job. Napa Cabernet has long fetched roughly double the price per ton that Sangiovese does. When an acre of prime hillside can be planted to either grape, that gap is not a close call, and replanting decisions across the valley reflected it.
How little is left
Published acreage figures vary by source and by year, which is itself telling for a variety this marginal. A 2014 survey by Italian Wine Central put Napa Sangiovese at about 264 acres, roughly half of one percent of the valley's planted area. A Napa County agricultural crop report cited by VinePair in 2021 put it lower still, at around 141 acres. Either way the direction is the same: a steep decline from the 2001 peak, and a rounding error against Cabernet's tens of thousands of acres.
What survives is concentrated in the hands of producers who grow it because they want to rather than because it pencils out. Many are families of Italian descent making a few hundred cases for their own tasting room and wine club.
The Rodeno clone
The most consequential thread in Napa Sangiovese runs through Villa Ragazzi, the estate of Greg and Michaela Rodeno. Their low-vigour Sangiovese selection, widely known as the Rodeno clone, became the valley's reference material after they began sharing budwood with neighbouring growers in the late 1980s. It went to Napa vintners and, notably, well beyond them.
The clone's virtue is also its commercial problem: it yields very little. Some growers who planted it have since pulled it out or now use it only as a small component in a blend. But the wines it makes are the argument that Napa Sangiovese was always capable of being serious, given the right site and the willingness to accept low tonnage.
The other long-running commitment is at Antica, the Antinori family's Atlas Peak estate, where Sangiovese has been planted for more than three decades. The Antinoris have been making Sangiovese in Tuscany for centuries, which makes their Napa project the most direct comparison available between the grape's homeland and its California outpost.
Napa wineries in our catalog pouring Sangiovese
These 16 Napa Valley wineries in the Wino Notion catalog reference Sangiovese on their profiles. Because production is small and most of it sells direct, the tasting room is usually the only place to try these wines.
Winery list drawn from our own catalog research. Acreage and producer-count figures attributed above to Italian Wine Central, VinePair and the Napa Valley Vintners, each dated because published totals differ by source and vintage year.
How to taste it
Ask for it directly. Sangiovese is rarely on the standard flight in a Napa tasting room, and when it exists it is often a club-only or library pour that comes out if you show interest. The upside is price: these bottles frequently sit well below the Cabernet next to them on the same list.
It also travels well as a comparison. If you are visiting more than one of the wineries above, tasting their Sangiovese back to back across different sites is a faster education in Napa terroir than doing the same with Cabernet, precisely because so few people are making it and each one has had to make deliberate choices about where to plant.
To go deeper on Napa's varieties and vintages, see our Napa Italian variety wineries page, the Napa Valley Vintage Guide for how each growing season shaped the wines, and the full Napa Valley directory for everything else in the valley.
Frequently asked questions
How many Napa wineries make Sangiovese?
Roughly 34 of Napa Valley's more than 500 wineries produce a Sangiovese or Sangiovese-based wine, and nearly all do so in very small volumes. Our catalog currently lists 16 Napa wineries whose profiles mention the grape.
Why is there so little Sangiovese in Napa Valley?
Economics, mostly. Cabernet Sauvignon commands roughly twice the price per ton, so Napa's best hillside sites are reserved for it. Sangiovese also needs well-drained, lower-vigour ground to make serious wine, and much of the 1980s planting went into rich valley-floor soils with poor clonal material, which produced disappointing results.
What is the Rodeno clone?
A low-yielding Sangiovese selection associated with Greg and Michaela Rodeno of Villa Ragazzi, who shared budwood with many Napa growers from the late 1980s onward. Its low tonnage means some producers now use it only as a component in blends.
Is Napa Sangiovese worth seeking out?
For the curious, yes. Because production is small and mostly sold direct, these wines rarely reach retail shelves, so a tasting room visit or wine club is usually the only way to try them. They also tend to be far cheaper than the Cabernet poured beside them.