By Gabe Saglie
(published in the Santa Barbara News-Press on December 27, 2012)
If you’ve got bubbles on the brain
these days, you’re not alone. More
sparkling wine will be sold this week than during any other period of the
year. It’s tough to beat fizz in the
glass to ring in a new year.
Champagne, of course, is the crowning
jewel in the bubbly business; over the centuries, this region in northern
France has produced some of the most storied releases in the wine industry,
with titles like Veuve Clicquot, Perrier-Jouet and Krug. Other regions in France, and other countries,
dabble in sparkling wine, too, of course, offering the thirsty celebrant
options like prosecco from Italy, cava from Spain and sekt from Germany.
And there’s California, where the
quality growing regions of Napa and Sonoma, mainly, have attracted lucrative
Champagne houses like Tattinger, Roederer and Moet & Chandon to make
American bubbly and where regional labels like J, Gloria Ferrer and Schramsberg
have been producing award-winning sparklers for decades.
But if there’s a rising star in this
industry, it may well be Santa Barbara County, where more winemakers are making
sparkling wine today – close to 15, according to figures from the Santa Barbara
County Vintners Association – than ever before.
“No one grows pinot noir and chardonnay
better than Santa Barbara County,” says SBCVA executive director Jim Fiolek,
referencing the two primary grape players in conventional sparkling wine
production. “But there are new things
happening here, too, and the diversity we claim here is also expressed in the
diversity of our sparkling wines.”
Indeed, the method of sparkling wine
production in Santa Barbra County is as diverse as the region itself. Some wineries produce them sporadically, on
years when they feel grapes pass muster or when fruit is available to them,
while others make it an annual endeavor.
Some produce it at their own, local facility while a few ship grapes
picked locally to get the sparkling treatment in other counties. Some use strict, traditional methods while a
handful thrill in putting bubbles in bottle by thinking well outside the box.
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| Drake Whitcraft ©Bob Dickey, winecountrypics.com |
Whitcraft Winery makes sparkling wine
sporadically. “On years when we get grapes
with high acids and low sugars,” says the younger Whitcraft. Lower sugars translate to lower alcohols, and
Whitcraft puts the ideal per-volume alcohol content for sparklers at 12.5%. The next installment in Whitcraft bubbly –
the fourth in its history – is a 2009 Brut Rosé made with pinot noir grapes
from the legendary Morning Dew Ranch in Anderson Valley. It’ll be bottled in January and released
(mostly to the Whitcraft wine club) in summer of 2015.
“To do sparkling wine right, it can
take five or six years,” says Whitcraft, who’s crafting his sparkler entirely
by hand at his downtown Santa Barbara winemaking facility. “When you have a small production – I’m doing
just two barrels, so 40 to 50 cases – then it’s easier to do it onsite.” He’s got specialized equipment – like a crown
capper and a champagne corker – at his winery.
And he adds, “Everything in small batches turns out better anyway.”
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| ©Bob Dickey, winecountrypics.com |
Like Whitcraft, the Brewer-Clifton team
makes their bubbles by hand and onsite, at their Lompoc facility; their
production hovers around a manageable 70 cases.
And, like Whitcraft, they employ very traditional techniques – a methode champenoise, emulating standards
of practice established by the classic houses of Champagne.
To oversimplify it: this methode starts with a blend of still
wines – a cuvée of chardonnay, for
example. Yeast and sugar are added and
the bottles are stoppered and laid down to rest (known as “en tirage”) while
the yeast consumes the sugar and those classy carbon dioxide bubbles come to
life. As carbonated wine forms, so does
a deposit of yeast. So bottles are
placed on A-frame racks – riddling racks – to move that sediment toward the
neck for eventual removal; this slow and labor-intensive process can take
months. Disgorging is next, where the
bottles are chilled and caps are removed in skillfully swift fashion to allow
the deposit to escape – sometimes in explosive fashion – while keeping the
effervescent wine inside. The bottle is
then corked; that classic mushroom shape of the Champagne cork ensures a secure
seal, and, with 75 to 90 PSI of pressure within the bottle, the wire caging
helps prevent a premature pop.
“They’re little bombs,” says winemaker
Norm Yost, with a laugh, “so I have to be very careful. But I’ve been pretty lucky so far.”
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| Norm Yost ©Bob Dickey, winecountrypics.com |
Mr. Yost sources his grapes from three
Santa Barbara County vineyards: Solomon Hills, Clos Pepe and Sierra Madre (he
also makes private-label sparkling wines for the latter two). “More than grapes
themselves, I think it’s more about which sites are better suited for sparkling
wine,” he says. “Some vineyards lend
themselves to having beautiful acids and great aromatics and great flavors at
lower sugars. That’s the biggest key.”
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| ©Bob Dickey, winecountrypics.com |
But investment and labor aside, bubbles
have been good for business. “It gives
us another product to set us apart, something different, and because it’s light
and fresh and fun, people like it,” says Mr. Yost, who adds that seven out of
10 of his sparkling wine customers are women.
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| Louis Lucas ©Bob Dickey, winecountrypics.com |
And while the Burgundian classics –
pinot and chardonnay – reign supreme in Santa Barbara’s sparkling wine
production, a handful of innovative producers are adding effervescent zest to
other local varieties. Steve Clifton
makes a sparkling nebbiolo ($46) for his Palmina Label, Tessa Marie Parker of
Tessa Marie Wines has a sparkling vermentino ($35) and Casa Dumetz Wines’ Sonja
Magdevski is going on her third year putting out a sparkling syrah ($35).
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| Sonja Magdevski ©Bob Dickey, winecountrypics.com |
“I use encapsulated yeast beads,” says
Ms. Magdevski. “You do your
fermentation, add them individually – a half-teaspoon per bottle, and they stay
whole, they don’t break apart – and then adjust your sugar levels. After four to six months, you’re done!” The beads can be expensive, she says, but they
can make fiscal sense to a small-scale production like Casa Dumetz, and they
allow a creative winemaker like Ms. Magdesvki to push the envelope while
creating something new.
“There are plenty of big, traditional
sparklers on the market, and mine is not that,” she admits, reiterating, “It’s
just fun.”
And for Mr. Fiolek, ventures like this
“prove my point about diversity,” he says.
“And that’s why sparkling wine in Santa Barbara County is becoming a
natural.”
