Amalthea Cellars: A quiet vintner making world-class wines in South Jersey

While working as a sommelier and living in New York City, at least once a week, I nosed a glass of the best-vintage this or that from the world’s most influential wine regions and took note. I have pages of them – some scribbled in proper tasting books and others annotated on wine-stained tasting sheets; the kind that get handed out at industry events and become increasingly difficult to hold in the same hand as a wine glass and pen.

Photo collage in the Amalthea tasting room depicts Louis Caracciolo’s grandfather Emilio making wine.

These days, as a food and wine writer based in South Jersey, I don’t get many opportunities to taste a wine that’s truly capable of transporting me back to the classroom where I trained at The International Culinary Center or the restaurants where I worked my way from server to sommelier. That is, until I visited a farm winery in our very own Atco, N.J. It’s called Amalthea Cellars and it’s not trying to be something it’s not.

Its driveway isn’t paved and there isn’t a calendar of kitschy events. As a matter of fact, for as remarkable as the wine is, the winemaker, Louis Caracciolo, is remarkably “hands off” about the award-winning wines he bottles on his farm property, which he established in 1976.

As he tells me over a glass of Sixth Edition Carme’, a proper “GSM” or blend of Grenache, Syrah, and Mourvèdre, he’s declassified his wines without problem, meaning he’s taken something intended for a premium bottling and reserved it for a single varietal table wine. It’s his artistic approach to all-things wine that’s ironically paved the way for Louis to consult for household names such as Chateaus Margaux and Cheval Blanc. Moreover, back in 2007-2008, Louis’s wines outperformed 2004 Cheval Blanc in a blind tasting attended by non other than George Taber, the New Jersey native and only reporter present for the historic 1976 Paris Tasting.

At Amalthea, Louis and his $30 reds continue to outshine some of the most legendary wines in the world, and yet, it’s only recently that I discovered the property to write about it for IAH readers! But Louis has been innovating at Amalthea – a reference to Jupiter’s little moon, for close to five decades, and he’s not planning to scale back anytime soon.

No doubt his work ethic is a credit to his parents, who he calls frozen food pioneers, partially because of their affiliation with Clarence Birdseye, who launched the frozen foods revolution, which started in New Jersey. Louis’ grandparents came to this country in their teens – from Napoli and Abruzzi, respectively; his “grandpop Emilio” passed to him his passion for making wine, and Louis tells me his mom was an unbelievable cook, encouraging him to become a certified chef when he lived in New York City.

An innovator himself, Louis earned his degree from Pratt Institute’s food science, technology, and engineering program, thus paving the way for him to become the first commercial winemaker in his family.

Visiting the grounds, with its hundred-year-old building and photos of “grandpop Emilio” proudly displayed on the wall of the tasting room, Amalthea Cellars feels like its situated in France or Italy instead of off the White Horse Pike; 36 or 42 minutes from South Philadelphia and Atlantic City, respectively.

Cheers to Louis! Cheers to his wonderful staff, including Ursula, and the vignerons (or wine growers), who contribute grapes for Louis’s exceptionally good wines bottled right here in New Jersey. It’s incredible what Louis has accomplished in just over four decades.

Nikki Palladino is a writer, instructor, and wine enthusiast living in South Jersey. Her writing has appeared in literary magazines, as well as online poetry collections. At-work on her debut novel about first-gen Italian Americans whose parents own competing Italian restaurants, Nikki is also an Adjunct Professor at Saint Joseph’s University and a Certified Sommelier through the Court of Master Sommeliers Americas. Follow her @nikki_pall.