Los Carneros AVA

I'm Brad.

I'm the Vineyard Director at Gloria Ferrer in Sonoma, Carneros.

We are drinking the 2022, I believe, Sencia, which is 100% Chardonnay Blanc de Blancs, zero dosage.

This is one of our quote-unquote innovation, small production wines.

It's probably my go-to.

It's all estate grown.

It's all from our estate vineyards in Carneros.

Everything, all of our lots are fermented separately and graded and blended accordingly for the final wine and how long it will spend in tirage and what the final dosage will be.

It's very hard to farm out there.

Kind of like Carneros, but probably harder.

Carneros has that wind and it's cold and it's vertebrate pressure.

And if you try to do anything organic out there, it's just really hard.

And so find the sites and the wines that you like and start learning about them.

When Koerner in 84 made it, well, no, let's go to the 90s.

In the 90s, when they went to Carneros, they found the fruit in Carneros.

That's where it comes from now.

Carneros is one of the coolest regions

of Napa Valley.

Absolutely.

Therefore...

I mean, everybody makes...

It's known for being a little bit more spicy, so I'd recommend the Pinot Grigio.

from italy very approachable very crisp very light very clean boom in your face um pinot noir now that's a very approachable red we talked about once in california we talked about from oregon we talked about france i personally lean more towards when i'm trying to get somebody to try them for the first time i i really lean towards California just because California has that red cherry that vanilla those those kind of spices and very and very light on the spices they have some baking spice some cinnamon maybe a little bit here and there but Oregon is usually known for its earthy flavors and that's something that sometimes can be a turnoff to some people so if you're if you're thinking Pinot Noir I'm thinking Pinot Noir from California, the Carneros region, Sonoma County does a fantastic job at producing high quality pinots that you can't really go wrong with.

And they're very, very approachable, very low tannins.

So you don't get that pucker of your mouth or that tongue drying out like you do on a Cabernet.

And Kyle told me the week before, hey, I think we're close.

I was like, well, if you're in Carneros and you're close and I'm up in Rutherford, we're always like eight degrees, 10 degrees warmer in Rutherford than Carneros.

I got to just take a look.

And so on July 20th, I go out there and I start tasting our Chardonnay that we're going to use to make our sparkling wine.

Greg was the one who sort of me off to this.

Greg and I were walking a vineyard in Carneros, in Sonoma, Carneros, farmed by Francis Mahoney, who's a fabulous grower.

I love Francis.

He's a fabulous grower.