Napa Vintners To Join China-California
Trade Mission
Photos by Charles Anderson
The owner and managing director of a new company featuring seven Napa Valley winemaking families has been invited by Lieutenant Governor John Garamendi to be part of a delegation of business executives on a trade mission to the People's Republic of China in February.
The delegation, organized by the California Commission for Economic Development, will represent the State of California in meetings and events in Beijing, Xi'an and Shanghai from February 18-28.
Napa native Daniel Capp formed the California-Asia Wine Exchange to distribute some of California's best wines in the vast and expanding Chinese marketplace.
Each of the seven California vintners involved in the Wine Exchange run independent, family-owned operations. In addition to Twin Creeks Vineyard/Lakeside Wine Co., owned by Dan and Marguerite Capps, the group includes Napa Valley vintners Volker Eisele of Chiles Valley; Mario Andretti; Bill and Roxanne Wolf, owners of Eagle Eye Wine and Alpha Wolf Vineyards of Gordon Valley; Bill Hanna, great-grandson of famed naturalist John Muir and owner of Muir-Hanna Vineyards; and Kirkland Ranch. The Exchange also includes Lake County vintners Clay and Margarita Shannon, owners of Shannon Ridge Vineyards and Winery.
"This is an exciting opportunity, not only for me and my partners, but also for the California wine industry," said Capp.
Capp is the great-great grandson of David Hudson -- one of America's most illustrious pioneers, one of Napa Valley's first settlers and grape growers, and one of the original 33 men who organized the Bear Flag Revolt in 1846, the first step toward wresting California from Mexican rule.
Raised on his family's Napa County farm in Gordon Valley, Capp is determined to continue his family's pioneer tradition. By embarking on a trans-continental mission to establish some of California's top wines in the huge marketplace of China, he is continuing his family's pioneering tradition that began before the Civil War and the California Gold Rush.
As a longtime agriculturalist, grape grower and vintner, Capp, 66, is uniquely suited to use his deep knowledge of the California wine industry to forge new relationships with the Chinese government in marketing wines from Napa, Sonoma and Lake Counties.