Carneros Estate Varietals

Expertise gained through making our sparkling wines provides subtle guidance when translated to the creation of our estate varietal wines. Executive Winemaker Bob Iantosca and Winemaker Steven Urberg apply their finely tuned palates in making still wines that match their sparkling counterparts. Decades of heirloom and French vine selection trials have led to winemaking where flavors and textures are blended from more than 50 individual lots of wine.

Crafting Gloria Ferrer Estate Varietal Wines

To better showcase the inherently delicate yet powerful nature of our estate vineyard Pinot Noir and Chardonnay, we began making varietal wines five years after opening our doors as Carneros’ first sparkling wine house. Mature vines, fine-tuned since the 1990s, produce modest yields with concentrated fruit expression. Our vineyard and winemaking teams cultivate and select the best fruit possible for Gloria Ferrer’s four estate Pinot Noirs and Chardonnay. “These distinctly different Carneros estate varietal wines are Gloria Ferrer’s undiscovered gems,” says Bob Iantosca. “We planted our heritage selections from a sparkling wine perspective, which has led us to clones we believe make great still wines,” says Iantosca.

Our history with clonal research began in the early 1980s, when Iantosca and VP Production Mike Crumly traveled to France, where they met with generations of vignerons, who allowed them to hand-select and return to California with diverse heirloom vines, which underwent years of agricultural quarantine. The dedication of importing, evaluating, and researching with the University of California at Davis, and then expanding this program was unprecedented in California winegrowing during these early years. Once it was decided which cuttings worked best for the Gloria Ferrer sparkling grapes and which for estate varietals, we acquired new land and constructed new vineyards specifically for estate varietal wine grapes. With this extensive investment — from the gathering of heirloom vines to experimenting with trials, cultivating new vineyards, digging extended underground caves, and adding fermentation tanks, barrels, and a separate crush pad — our commitment to the creation of estate varietal Pinot Noir and Chardonnay runs deep.

Pinot Noir

The most challenging and rewarding expression of our vineyard cultivation is Pinot Noir. Over the years, our research has provided a blueprint for matching specific heritage selections with soil types to encourage a balance that provides distinctive fruit qualities for sparkling and estate varietal Pinot Noirs. Seven primary and seven secondary Pinot Noirs speak to the tremendous blending possibilities that exist from the diversity of our estate vineyards. The higher ridges of the vineyard consist of rocky, volcanic soils that create vine stress. This stress naturally promotes less vigor, lower yields, and intense varietal character of our varietal wines. The lower soil blocks are more fertile, delivering delicacy and a forward fruit element to the sparkling wines.

Chardonnay

Chardonnay thrives in Carneros, where fruit is balanced by lower sugars and crisp acidity. Gloria Ferrer sparkling and estate varietal wines made from Chardonnay are bright, ripe, and balanced with perfect acidity. This combination is achieved by planting Chardonnay on the lower sections of the vineyard and in soils with higher water-holding capacity, which promotes vivid fruit flavors and minimizes vine stress.

“What’s advantageous about making sparkling and estate varietal wine is that we can take the best of what we have — all the different vineyard components — and blend them into sensational wines the sum of which is greater than the individual parts,” observes Iantosca. Iantosca and Urberg find the discipline required for making sparkling wine encourages grace and finesse in crafting estate varietal wines that pair perfectly with food.