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WINEMAKING TECHNICAL SPOTLIGHT 56 WINES&VINES September 2017 W ith U.S. sales of sparkling wines rising and demand for higher quality in California's Lodi appellation, the timing was right for wine- maker Eric Donaldson to parlay his sparkling wine experience into starting a winery. In addition to pro- ducing sparkling wines under his own label, Donaldson fills a niche providing custom services to produce méthode champenoise-style sparkling wines for other wineries. For many years Lodi has had a bulk sparkling wine facil- ity supplying bottled wine with custom labels to local (and out-of-area) tasting rooms, but there was no méthode cham- penoise producer using Lodi-grown grapes and performing the entire process within the Lodi appellation. As Donaldson observed, "Charmat (bulk) processed sparkling wines are not cutting it here anymore. Lodi appellation wineries and customers have become more knowledgeable and experi- enced, and they want something better." Donaldson's LVVR Sparkling Cellars wines were recog- nized by Wine Business Monthly as one of 10 "Hot Brands of 2016," and Donaldson believes his list of a dozen custom service clients will double by 2018. Early on, LVVR has established the ability to produce a quality product with growth potential. The equally remarkable story is how a young person in his 30s, mainly going it alone, was able to start a winery from scratch with a limited budget for pro- ducing traditional sparkling wine, which requires special- ized and often expensive equipment. Donaldson's résumé A native of Ohio, Donaldson majored in botany and geog- raphy at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, with a minor in entrepreneurship. He began working in his home state's wine industry in 2005. "My original plan was to work on the vineyard side of the industry, but then I got interested in the winemaking side and stayed there," Donaldson told Wines & Vines. His résumé includes jobs at Valley Vineyards and Vinoklet Winery near Cincinnati and Ferrante Winery near Cleveland. He moved west to expand his experience at Alderbrook Winery in Sonoma County, and later at South- west Wines in Deming, N.M., where he worked in large- scale sparkling wine production. Donaldson completed the online winemaking certificate program from the University of California, Davis, Extension. He moved to Lodi in 2011 and worked at LangeTwins Vine- yard and Winery while also working part-time at a wine bar and as a winemaking consultant. Donaldson first produced Lodi sparkling wine in 2012 on a consulting project for four sisters, and the LVVR brand comes from the first letters of their names—Leticia, Vanessa, Virginia and Rose. In Lodi, Donaldson saw an opportunity and took it. "Lodi offers good quality and good value for the grapes grown here. Everything fell into place with the connections I have here— finding equipment and an affordable location—and a lot of things lined up for this to happen," he said. "Higher quality is being demanded here in Lodi, and in terms of traditional sparkling wine production, no one else is doing it." The production facility LVVR leases 4,000 square feet of production space within a winery co-op called The Tuscan Wine Village in Lockeford, just east of Lodi. The Village is a 75,000-square-foot facility on 22 acres originally built in 1946 as the Lockeford Coop- erative Winery, which processed and fermented Lodi grapes in large concrete wine tanks with capacities up to 60,000 gallons. The facility closed in the late 1970s and was vacant until 1998, when it was purchased by a construction con- tractor who began environmental remediation on the prop- erty and modernized the facility's infrastructure. He cut LVVR Sparkling Cellars Lodi méthode champenoise producer fills quality niche with practical startup plan By Ted Rieger TECHNICAL SPOTLIGHT Eric Donaldson's winemaking journey took him from Ohio to California to New Mexico before finally settling in Lodi, Calif.