Month: September 2024

Called Champagne in France, Prosecco in Italy, Cava in Spain, and sparkling wine throughout California and North America, the history of the world’s best sparkling wines may have begun with a very happy accident in the cellar of Blanquette de Limoux in Languedoc, France almost 500 years ago. This happy accident was likely very cool winter weather that resulted in a “stuck fermentation,” which then woke up the yeast as the temperatures warmed, creating significant levels of carbon dioxide (the source of sparkling wine’s effervescence), and the world’s first sparkling wine was born.

In the early 17th century, a monk named Dom Pierre Pérignon who had tasted the wines of Limoux, brought the style to Champagne and began planting vines, though he passed away before commercial production could begin. In the decades that followed, several great Champagne houses were established, including Moet & Chandon in 1745 and Veuve Clicquot in 1772. At Veuve Clicquot, the legendary Madame Clicquot (one of the original great women winemakers) invented the riddling process to remove yeast after secondary fermentation—which today is universally known as the méthode champenoise.

The history of sparkling wine in Italy goes back almost as far, with the first written reference to it in 1754. In 1895, Prosecco became much more affordable to produce, and therefore more popular and available with the invention of the Charmat method, where wine undergoes secondary fermentation in a pressurized tank, prior to being filtered and bottled under pressure.

Sparkling Wine in California

The history of Russian River Valley and Sonoma County sparkling wine goes back to at least 1892 when the Korbel brothers began crafting wines using the méthode champenoise. Originally made from grapes like Riesling, Muscatel, and Traminer, the quality of Californian sparkling wine improved with the planting of the more traditional sparkling wine grapes, most notably Chardonnay and Pinot Noir. As the quality of California’s sparkling wines increased, so did investment in California from some of Champagne’s most revered houses, including Roederer (Roederer Estate), Moet & Chandon (Domaine Chandon) and Taittinger (Domaine Carneros).

Today, California sparkling wine is going through a renaissance in quality and prestige. This has been driven by several factors, including California winemakers taking inspiration from the grower Champagne movement in France, great plantings of top-quality Pinot Noir and Chardonnay in true cool-climate wine regions, and even the record-breaking cool temperatures of the 2011 vintage, which led several innovative winemakers to pivot to sparkling wine production when their still wine grapes did not fully ripen.

Sparkling Wine at MacRostie

The genesis for our sparkling wine program began when our winemaker, Heidi Bridenhagen, was sharing a glass of Champagne with a co-worker in early 2016. After discussing how much they both loved French Champagne and the best Sonoma Coast sparkling wines, it naturally led to the question, “Why aren’t we making sparkling wine?!” As a winery that has spent almost 40 years focused on cool-climate Chardonnay and Pinot Noir—the two key sparkling wine grapes—it was a natural decision for our team and something that we were excited to try.

After consulting with numerous winemakers in Champagne and California, Heidi blended Chardonnay from the famed Sangiacomo Vineyard with Pinot Noir from our own beloved Thale’s Estate Vineyard to create our debut 2016 MacRostie Sparkling Brut. In the years that followed, our sparkling program grew to include a Brut Rosé, which like the Brut, is crafted from both Chardonnay and Pinot Noir. In 2020, after several vintages of refining our approach, Heidi decided to do something new and showcase the character and complexity of our Chardonnay on its own by crafting a Blanc de Blancs, with a Blanc de Noirs (sparkling wine made from red grapes) following soon after.

Now in its second vintage, we will be releasing our 2021 MacRostie Blanc de Blancs this month (September 2024), and we couldn’t be more excited. Crafted using Martini Clone Chardonnay from a prized block of theSangiacomo family’s Kiser Ranch and aged for 30 months en tirage before being disgorged and bottled with a dosage under 6 grams per liter (Extra Brut), it is a joyful sparkling wine. While it’s a serious and sophisticated Sonoma Coast Blanc de Blancs by any measure, it is also beautifully energetic and playful in a way that beckons fun! Not only is it perfect for celebrations, but it’s also the kind of radiant sparkler that brings the celebration with it.

The history of winegrowing in Sonoma County goes back more than 200 years, with grapes planted in the region as early as 1812. By the 1920s, driven by European immigrants who brought their viticultural traditions with them, there were more than 250 wineries in Sonoma County. While that number dropped to less than 50 wineries by the end of Prohibition, the region had already established itself as a New World mecca for wine.

In the decades that followed, different parts of Sonoma County earned acclaim for specific grape varietals, and efforts emerged to define different regions within Sonoma County. Building on the region’s reputation for excellence, the Sonoma Coast earned official status as an American Viticulture Area (also known as an AVA or appellation) in 1987. The Sonoma Coast AVA is one of California’s most diverse wine regions. Much like the Napa Valley AVA, which includes 16 sub-AVAs, the Sonoma Coast encompasses nine unique sub-AVAs: Chalk Hill, Fort Ross-Seaview, Green Valley of Russian River Valley, Los Carneros, Northern Sonoma, Sonoma Valley, the Russian River Valley, which is home to our Estate House and our Thale’s Vineyard, and the Petaluma Gap, where we established our Nightwing Estate Vineyard.

Spanning almost half a million acres of land, the Sonoma Coast extends from the border of Mendocino County in the north to San Pablo Bay in the south, and from the windswept Pacific Coast to the rolling hills of Sonoma County’s southeastern dairy lands. While the AVA offers an abundance of microclimates, geology, and soil types, in general, the best Sonoma Coast wines benefit from wind and fog off the Pacific, and the fact that the region consistently receives almost twice the annual rainfall of AVAs that are further inland. These factors generally ensure a long, temperate growing season, which allows for slow, even ripening and acid retention, both of which contribute to the extraordinary quality of our Sonoma Coast wines.

Today, many of North America’s highest-scoring and most celebrated Pinot Noirs and Chardonnays are grown on the Sonoma Coast, with Sonoma County being named the “Wine Region of the Year” by Wine Enthusiast in 2019, and wines from the Sonoma Coast are consistently featured on Wine Spectator’s annual list of the “World’s Top 100 Wines,” including the “2011 Wine of the Year.” The acclaim of the Sonoma Coast AVA has only grown over the past two decades during the Pinot Noir boom that has reshaped the map of California winegrowing. During this time, many wineries like MacRostie that focus on cool-climate Pinot Noir and Chardonnay, as well as winegrowers, have headed ever further west and north to plant new vineyards using the best modern plant material and state-of-the-art viticultural techniques.

Because of its large size and diversity, the Sonoma Coast can produce wines in a range of styles. For Chardonnays from the coolest regions like Green Valley, this can mean sleek, acid-driven wines with zesty citrus flavors and sophisticated minerality. In warmer vineyards, the flavor spectrum can change from citrus to stone fruit to tropical. Pinot Noir can follow a similar spectrum of ripeness from tart red berry and forest floor flavors to more opulent blue and black fruit flavors at warmer sites.

At our Sonoma Winery, Winemaker Heidi Bridenhagen embraces the diversity of the Sonoma Coast vineyards we partner with to create vibrant, beautifully balanced wines with profound aromas and complex, layered flavors. This is certainly true for our 2022 MacRostie Sonoma Coast Chardonnay, which recently earned 93 points from both Wine Enthusiast and The Tasting Panel. Blended using grapes from theSangiacomo and Ricci vineyards in Carneros, and sites farmed by the Dutton and Martinelli families in the Russian River Valley, it combines notes of lemon and stone fruit from Carneros with the acid-driven tension, green apple, and tropical fruit of the Russian River Valley. For the 2022 Sonoma Coast Pinot Noir, Heidi focused on her favorite sub-AVAs for Pinot, notably the Russian River Valley, Carneros, and the Petaluma Gap. From the earth and spice notes of Carneros to the lush fruit of the Russian River Valley to the power and complexity of the Petaluma Gap, each vineyard and region brings something distinctive and compelling to the final wine.

We also explore many single-vineyard expressions of Chardonnay and Pinot Noir from the Sonoma Coast at sites like Walala Vineyard and Wildcat Mountain, as well as from acclaimed sub-AVAs like the Russian River Valley (Kent Ritchie Vineyard, Thale’s, Mirabelle, Klopp Ranch), the Petaluma Gap (Nightwing Vineyard, Gap’s Crown) and Los Carneros (Sangiacomo Vineyard).

While the Sonoma Coast is globally renowned for its wines, it has also earned acclaim as one of the world’s premier destinations for wine tourism and relaxed, down-to-earth hospitality. Sonoma Coast wine country has become a must-visit destination by combining world-class wines, Michelin-starred restaurants, and beautiful hotels with a warm, unpretentious attitude. It is also home to numerous tasting rooms and not-to-be-missed annual wine events like Winter Wineland (January), Taste of Sonoma (June), the Sonoma County Wine Auction (September), and Pinot on the River and Healdsburg Crush (October).

Whatever your taste is in wine, food, and outdoor fun, the Sonoma Coast has it all!