Winemaker Notes
This delicious crisp bubbly, with hints of apples, pears and almonds on the noise, offers luscious layers of texture that tantalize the tongue. This vintage is more fruit forward in style than previous vintages. Enjoy this sparkler while sitting on the pier watching the sunset and eating oysters on the half shell, sushi, sashimi, uni, grilled shrimp and pineapple kebabs or a grilled white fish. Brie, dried fruits and nuts will also pair well.
Professional Ratings
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Wine Enthusiast
A slightly darker shade of yellow in the glass, this bottling offers a creamy cider-like nose, full of corn tortilla, dried mandarin and lemon-pith aromas. The palate is quite tart at first, but the midpalate offers that corn-like warmth before the finish shows more sour apple and ashy cheese-rind flavors.
Representing the topmost expression of a Champagne house, a vintage Champagne is one made from the produce of a single, superior harvest year. Vintage Champagnes account for a mere 5% of total Champagne production and are produced about three times in a decade. Champagne is typically made as a blend of multiple years in order to preserve the house style; these will have non-vintage, or simply, NV on the label. The term, "vintage," as it applies to all wine, simply means a single harvest year.
A lesser-known but elite AVA within the larger Santa Barbara district, the Santa Maria Valley AVA runs precisely west to east starting near the coast. The valley funnels cool, Pacific Ocean air to the vineyards more inland, allowing grapes a longer hang time to ripen evenly and achieve their full potential by harvest time. Combined with minimal rainfall, consistent warm sunshine, and well-drained soils, it is an ideal environment for grape growing.
Many of the wineries here are small and highly respected, having established a reputation in the 1970s and 80s for producing excellent Central Coast wines like Pinot Noir and Chardonnay. More recently, Syrah has also proven quite successful in the region. Many vineyards are owned by growers who sell their grapes to other wineries, so it is common to see the same vineyard name on bottlings from different wineries. Bien Nacido Vineyard is perhaps the best-known and most prestigious.