San Francisco Chronicle - (Sunday)
California sparkling wines for ringing out a tough year
On New Year’s Eve, sparkling wine is the only wine. And on this New Year’s Eve in particular, we have a lot to celebrate. Even if we can't have a proper party this year, it will still be worth it to crack open a special bottle before midnight to mark this awful year coming to a close and the hopeful news about coronavirus vaccines.
Here are some of my favorite California sparkling wines from recent tastings. Find even more bubbly recommendations at sfchronicle. com/ wine.
An archetype of sparkling California Chardonnay: Schramsberg Blanc de Blancs North Coast 2017 ($ 36, 12.2%): The Blanc de Blancs is reliably one of my favorite wines from Schramsberg, the Napa Valley sparklingwine stalwart whose winery barely evaded destruction in this year’s Glass Fire. This all Chardonnay wine comes from fruit grown in Napa, Sonoma and Marin counties, and rides a perfect line between creamy, yeasty richness and a lean, bracing tartness, with pronounced notes of oyster shell and sea salt. Buy it from Schramsberg or at BevMo, Cal Mart, Coit Liquors, K& L, Good Life Grocery, the Jug Shop, Wine Impression, Whole Foods and Michaelis Wine & Spirits.
A solid price to quality value in California bubbly: Roederer Estate Brut Anderson Valley NV ($ 25, 12.5%): The nonvintage brut from Roederer Estate, the American outpost of French Champagne house Louis Roederer, is perennially one of the best values in California sparkling wine. It has a little bit more sweetness than some of the other wines in this list — the dosage, or sugar solution that gets added to sparkling wines at the end of the production process, is about 12 grams of sugar per liter — but the wine tastes balanced, putting bright, ripe fruit flavors front and center, accented by toasted nuts. The wine is widely available.
An unorthodox, darkred sparkler: Frank Family Rouge Carneros 2016 ($ 55, 12%): This very unusual sparkling wine is deep red in color, like a rosé sparkling wine taken to the extreme. It is mostly made up of Pinot Noir, which is a classic grape for Champagne method wine but is almost never given this degree of skin contact; I’ve never tasted anything quite like it. My mind immediately jumped to Lambrusco, the darkred frizzante from Italy’s Emilia-Romagna, though the similarities don’t extend very far beyond their shared hue. Frank Family’s Rouge is polished, with all the fruity confidence and baking spices of a typical Carneros Pinot, and tastes like chocolate coated cranberries. It’s fairly dry and has some tannic grip, making it the rare sparkling wine that I’d recommend serving at the end of a meal. Buy it from Frank Family.
Sparkling Chenin No. 1: richly textured and savory: Birichino Sparkling Chenin Blanc Jurassic Park Vineyard 2016 ($ 40, 13%): Santa Cruz winemakers John Locke and Alex Krause make a non-fizzy version of the Chenin Blanc from Jurassic Park Vineyard in Santa Barbara County, but they were wise to set aside some of the fruit for this Champagne method sparkling wine. It’s bonedry, with no dosage, and registers as a refreshing shock — in a good way — to the palate. It reminds me of wool, chamomile tea, underripe pears and honeysuckle blossoms. Buy it from Birichino or at K& L.
Sparkling Chenin No. 2: fruitforward and bright: Maitre de Chai Sparkling Chenin Blanc Clarksburg 2019 ($ 32, 11.5%): Here’s another sparkling Chenin Blanc, this one from grapes grown near the Sacramento River Delta in Yolo County. Winemakers Alex Pitts and Marty Winters, whose winery is in Berkeley, take a different approach to a Champagne method Chenin from Birichino’s. Their shorter aging regimen results in a more forward and direct wine, full of bright green apple and quince. Buy it from Maitre de Chai or at Fig & Thistle, Bay Grape, Habibi and Compline. A wild tasting pet nat: Donkey & Goat Brut Nat California NV ($ 45, 11.8%): Every year it seems as if more and more California wineries are dabbling with petillant naturel — sparkling wines made in the ancestral method, in which wines are simply bottled mid-fermentation in order to capture carbon dioxide. Pet nats tend to be a little more rustic, with less of that highpressure bubbly intensity, than Champagne method wines. Donkey & Goat’s Brut Nat, made mostly from Russian River Valley Pinot Meunier grapes, is a prime example of the type: lightly funky, with tart citrus flavors and aromas of fragrant flower petals. Buy it from Donkey & Goat.
A less expensive option from the maker of California’s most soughtafter bubbly: Cruse Tradition California NV ($ 50, 12.5%): Michael Cruse has developed a passionate following among sparkling wine enthusiasts — so much so that we named him the Winemaker of the Year in 2016 — but the Champagne method wines under his Ultramarine label remain hard to get and quite expensive, often sold for $ 200 per bottle. So it was exciting when he debuted a much more affordable Champagne method wine, Cruse Tradition. Unlike the Ultramarine wines, which are singlevineyard and single vintage, the Cruse Tradition is composed of multiple vintages and vineyards throughout the state. It captures a distinctly Californian mood: sunshine and ripeness. There’s a lot of textural complexity here, with flavors of hazelnut, toasted bread, honeycomb and lemon zest. Buy it at Verve, K& L and Acme.