Capitello Wines

An Oregon family winery with New Zealand roots. Winemaker and owner Ray Walsh make artisan wines from both hemispheres – reds, whites, and sparkling. Growing up in the adult-playground of New Zealand, Ray Walsh found fun in life, photography and in nature. Vineyards were simply places to pick up and expend ammunition to shoo away countless birds descending on the latest crop of grapes in the countryside surrounding his hometown of Auckland. Walsh found his calling in the wine industry in the late 1980s while a young lad backpacking through Europe and working a harvest in Germany’s Mosel region to finance his travels. The breeze, the high cliffs, the gentle sounds of the Mosel river was the perfect canvas for a budding artist to enrapture his imagination and find his hands wrapped and entwined in the vines of a new medium — the vineyard.

Bitten with the wine bug, Ray hurried back to New Zealand to complete his oenology studies, earning his degree in fermentation science. Soon after, he began working alongside Kim Crawford and with New Zealand giant Villa Maria Estate before being recruited by Ed King of King Estate Winery in Eugene, Oregon. Drawn to Oregon’s terroir and the growing reputation as the top region in the world for Pinot Noir, Walsh excitedly began his new life as an Oregon winemaker in 1993. Working alongside colleagues Will Bucklin and Sean Minor, and with their help, raised King’s profile and reputation as a top producer of quality Pinot Noir and Pinot Gris, garnering many top awards, including placing King Estate wines into Wine Spectator’s top 100 list. Walsh continued to lead King Estate’s winemaking team for a decade, but with his young son Desmond to look after, and it becoming apparent that family time would only become more scarce as King’s operation grew, Ray made a choice to step away from the rat race so to speak and started his own craft artisan brand, Capitello Wines in 2003, which is now running 10 years strong.