By Mike Dunne, Sacramento Bee

Marco Cappelli is pouring six wines into six glasses lined up on a counter at Miraflores Winery in the Pleasant Valley district of El Dorado County, just southeast of Placerville.

He is about to give a visiting wine writer a lesson in the making of angelica, which just may be California’s rarest wine and almost certainly its most historic.

“This wine, or rather this grape product called wine, dates from the earliest mission period. It was nothing more than unfermented grape juice run off into casks containing spirit. The spirit brought in alcohol to prevent spoilage and the grape sugar gave sweetness and flavor,” wrote Sacramento grocer Darrell Corti in the chapter he contributed to the thick University of California/Sotheby “Book of California Wine,” published 30 years ago. “Some of the finest examples of old California wine that I have tasted have been very old angelicas. Silky, harmonious, and elegant, they have been paragons of liqueur wines.”

Each glass that Cappelli has arranged holds a splash of wine fermented from mission grapes, with five of the six representing a different vintage over the past decade. The sixth contains a taste of the first angelica that Cappelli is releasing under his own eponymous label.

“Angelica is a wine without broad general appeal,” Cappelli is saying as he continues to pour. “It appeals to people who like sweet wines and who appreciate California history.”

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• Truckee made National Geographic’s list of top 25 ski towns in the world.
• El Dorado County Court Appointed Special Advocates is looking for volunteers. For more info, call 530.573.3093.
• The Bicycle Advisory Committee of the South Lake Tahoe Recreation Facilities Joint Powers Authority will meet Sept. 5 from 9-11am at Lake Tahoe Airport.
• North Tahoe High School in Tahoe City doesn’t have enough players to field a football team this season.
• Truckee River Winery on Aug. 27 is donating a portion of proceeds from sales on that day to Whitney Hardy, a Truckee native who was involved in an accident while out for a run on Feb. 20. She was hit by a car, suffered major head injuries, and has a long road to recovery.

By Kat Kerlin, UC Davis

California has allocated five times more surface water than the state actually has, making it hard for regulators to tell whose supplies should be cut during a drought, UC researchers reported.

The scientists said California’s water-rights regulator, the State Water Resources Control Board, needs a systematic overhaul of policies and procedures to bridge the gaping disparity, but lacks the legislative authority and funding to do so.

Ted Grantham, who explored the state’s water-rights database as a postdoctoral researcher with the UC Davis Center for Watershed Sciences, said the time is ripe for tightening the water-use accounting.

Better information might enable state regulators to better target water cutbacks in times of drought, Grantham said.

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Douglas County sheriff’s investigators are still not able to positively identify the human remains that were found in June near the top of Spooner Summit.

Results of DNA tests are pending. That could take another 12 to 16 weeks.

The cause of death is also still under investigaton.

The remains were located approximately 300 yards to the north of Highway 50 between the Tahoe Rim trail and Kings Canyon Road in a remote wooded area by inmate work crews clearing brush in the area

— Lake Tahoe News staff report

The first Lakeview Commons Beachside Movie Night is Aug. 23.

“Frozen” will be shown starting at 8:30pm.

The movie is free. Food will be sold.

Bring blankets to the South Lake Tahoe showing.

TOCCATA – Tahoe Symphony Orchestra and Chorus — presents a soiree musicale to support its 9/11 Memorial Concert Series.

Elizabeth Pitcairn, violinist, will be featured along with accompanist Donna Axton, Ann LaRose, piano soloist, and vocalists Anna Helwing and Joy Strotz, sopranos; Liudmila Mullin, Mezzo soprano; and Mark Williams, tenor.

The event takes place in a private home in Incline Village on Sept. 6 at 3pm.

Pitcairn will be featured along with David Brock, organist, in a private home in South Lake Tahoe on Sept. 15 at 5pm.

Seating is limited for each event. The cost is $125 for each performance.

Call 787.602.2121 or go online for information or tickets.

Nevada Gov. Brian Sandoval, who chairs the Western Governors’ Association, spoke Aug. 19 in Tahoe about drought and fire. Photo/Kathryn Reed

By Jesse Paul, Denver Post

The Western Governors’ Association in a letter last week urged U.S. Senate and congressional leadership, and President Obama, to increase federal wildfire budgets so agencies can stop using fire prevention funds for fire suppression.

The association said the U.S. Forest Service is again on pace to utilize prevention funds for suppression — known as “fire borrowing” — in a season where Oregon, California and Washington have seen millions of acres of forestland burn.

“We end up robbing from the land managers,” said Kevin Klein, director of the Colorado Division of Homeland Security and Emergency Management. “We end up stealing from those [prevention] programs to fight the fire. Treating wildfires like we do with our other programs makes sense to me.”

“In the past decade, wildfires have increased in size and intensity and the fire season now extends 60-80 days longer than historic averages,” said the association, calling its position “long-standing.” “Ineffective management, droughts and insect infestations also have left Western forest far more susceptible to catastrophic fires.”

Despite the risk, federal wildfire budgets have remained stagnant, the association said, “reinforcing this damaging wildfire cycle.”

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By Max Ehrenfreund, Washington Post

Since Michael Brown’s death in Ferguson, Mo. on Aug. 9, police have shot and killed people who were apparently unarmed in Los Angeles; San Jose; Victorville; and South Salt Lake, Utah. For two days, police in New Orleans did not make public the fact that an officer had shot a man in the head. He is expected to survive the injury.

News reports of officer-involved shootings are fairly regular across the country, but there are no national, comprehensive statistics on these incidents, so it is impossible to say how frequently they happen. Information about those struck by police bullets is also unavailable — whether they are unarmed or carrying a weapon, criminals or innocent bystanders, black or white. Reliable data would make it easier for citizens to know when officers are acting recklessly, and for police departments to develop methods of avoiding the use of lethal force.

The FBI collects data from police departments on all kinds of crimes, including hate crimes violence against police officers, but the bureau is not required to compile statistics on officer-involved shootings. Data from the state of New York shows that the targets of police gunfire are disproportionately black, which would be consistent with psychological experiments suggesting that in dangerous situations, people are more likely to shoot at black people than at white people.

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Tahoe Kids Triathlon is Aug. 24 starting at 3pm at the South Lake Tahoe Recreation Complex.

The event is for ages 3-13.

Registration is from 1:30-2:30pm, or register online.

First race (PeeWee – ages 3-6) starts at 3pm. Second wave (Tweens – ages 10-13) will start as soon as the PeeWees finish. Third wave (Groms – ages 7-9) start as soon as the Tweens are out of the pool.

The events are at the South Lake Tahoe Rec Center with a pool swim and flat, paved bike and run courses.

El Dorado County Teen Court in Placerville is recruiting student participants for the fall program.

El Dorado County students in grades 8-12 eligible. Volunteer training is Sept. 10 from 6-8pm in El Dorado County Superior Court,  495 Main St. in Placerville. Arrive by 5:45pm.

After completing the mandatory training, teens serve as court personnel for real cases in which a minor has committed an offense, admitted the offense and chosen to be judged for sentencing by their peers.

Teen Court hearings will be October through May on scheduled Wednesday nights. A calendar of hearing dates will be provided at the training.

For information about Teen Court in South Lake Tahoe, contact Jorge Orozco at 530.573.7964 and in Placerville contact Austin at 530.621.6380.