Issue link: http://winesandvines.uberflip.com/i/70673
WINEMAKING The Gruet and Himeur families earned their bubbly credentials in Champagne, and when son Laurent Gruet was ready to take on winemaking duties somewhere, the families drew a bead on the soils and climates of the mountains of New Mexico—near Truth or Consequences, honest—and moved there in 1987, releas- ing their first wines in 1989. The price of land was right compared to both California and Champagne. Today this unlikely locale furnishes Gruet with grapes for 130,000 cases per year of spar- klers priced between $14 and $50, plus a small amount of still table wines. The South Coast Winery Resort and Spa in the Temecula Valley of Southern California opened in 2003. With its wine- making wrapped in a full-featured wine country tourist destination, the resort and restaurant naturally needed sparkling wine for visitors. Winemakers Jon McPherson and Javier Flores started by having their base wines turned into Charmat-process sparklers by Weibel Family Vineyards in Mendo- cino, Calif., but South Coast's owner, Jim Carter, decided they should make it themselves and increase production. So he popped for a $1 million facility that now turns out 10,000 cases of sparkling wine ($18-$28 per bottle) in an overall 50,000- case production. Lake Ridge Winery in Clermont, Fla., wanted a sparkler for the tasting rooms at its two winemaking facilities, so the winemaker decided to put the local Muscadine grapes through the méthode Champenois process as a sideline. It now "you can't just divert bad, unripe grapes to a sparkling program. you need to say, 'We're growing for that purpose, that's all we're doing.'" —Larry Mawby comprises about 2% of the winery's over- all 110,000-case production, and Lake Ridge can't make enough of it. Attempt- ing to spread the availability of the wine through the year, the winery tried raising the price, but winemaker Jeanne Burgess says that has only served to increase demand. The 1,600 cases are currently selling for $14 per bottle. When industry veterans Bruce Lund- quist and Rebecca Faust decided to launch a custom-crush facility in Mendo- cino County's Hopland, Calif., they decid- ed to put their experience with sparkling wine to work and offer it as a specialized service. The winery opened in 2007, and today 10 or so sparkling wine clients make up a little more than half of their business at Rack & Riddle, which offers a complete à la carte menu of options. grapes and winemaking Everyone interviewed for this story empha- sized that sparkling wine is different—not just because of the winemaking procedures but also due to grape sourcing. Growing or getting the right fruit, in the right condi- tion, can be a major limiting factor for many wineries, depending on their location. "You can't just divert bad, unripe grapes to a sparkling program," Larry Mawby says. "You need to say, 'We're growing for that purpose, that's all we're doing.'" Key members of the winemaking staff at New York's Chateau Frank came there from Wines & Vines FeBRUARY 2011 37