Winemaker Notes
Critical Acclaim
All VintagesFruity but trim, this nicely balanced wine combines fresh apple and a hint of ginger on a crisp texture of tight bubbles. This bracing quality adds to its elegance.
The Schramsberg Blanc de Noirs was the first of its style to be produced commercially in the US, originally released in 1967. The 2016 Blanc de Noirs, made up of 81% Pinot Noir and 19% Chardonnay, opens with broody bruised apples, bread dough, baked quince and floral perfume. The medium-bodied palate is rounded with pure tree fruits mingling with nutty nuance, lifted by gently creamy mousse and finishing long.
81% Pinot Noir; 19% Chardonnay. Incisively yeasty and charged with plenty of spry, mildly citrusy fruit, this comparatively elegant and refined bottling displays the brightness reminiscent of a Blanc de Blancs while quietly possessing a bit of the expected richness of a Blanc de Noirs. Balanced to crispness and buoyed by very wellintegrated acidity with wonderfully persistent, pin-point bubbles to spare, it fully reflects the Schramsberg Blanc de Noirs norm of being far more concerned with grace and finesse than with fullvolume, toasty extravagance.
In 1965, Jack and Jamie Davies founded Schramsberg and set out to make world-class sparkling wine in the true méthode traditionelle style on the property originally established in 1862 by German immigrant Jacob Schram. There were only 22 bonded wineries in Napa Valley and fewer than 100 acres of California vineyards planted to Chardonnay and Pinot Noir. Schramsberg was the first California winery to provide a Blanc de Blancs in 1965 followed by a Blanc de Noirs in 1967. Now their son, Hugh Davies, leads the winery’s management and winemaking team.
The Schramsberg estate in Napa Valley’s famed Diamond Mountain District is a registered historic landmark with Napa’s first caves, hand-dug in the 1880s, and its first hillside vineyards. Quality focus drives all aspects of wine production starting with access to over 120 cool-climate sites in Carneros, Marin, Mendocino and Sonoma, which result in over 200 separate lots. Unique among California sparkling wine houses, Schramsberg ferments about 25 percent of its juice in oak barrels to produce rich, flavorful, complex wines.
Most of Schramsberg’s viticultural and winemaking practices are carried out by hand: grapes are hand harvested, the wines are handcrafted, and the bottles are stacked and riddled in underground caves. The family and the winery embody excellence and innovation in winemaking, as well as preservation of their land, their history and their community.
Reaching up California's coastline and into its valleys north of San Francisco, the North Coast AVA includes six counties: Marin, Solano, Napa, Sonoma, Mendocino and Lake. While Napa and Sonoma enjoy most of the glory, the rest produce no shortage of quality wines in an intriguing and diverse range of styles.
Climbing up the state's rugged coastline, the chilly Marin County, just above the City and most of Sonoma County, as well as Mendocino County on the far north end of the North Coast successfully grow cool-climate varieties like Pinot Noir, Chardonnay and in some spots, Riesling. Inland Lake County, on the other hand, is considerably warmer, and Cabernet Sauvignon, Zinfandel and Sauvignon Blanc produce some impressive wines with affordable price tags.
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.