Necessity may be the mother of invention, but sometimes invention begins with an accident.
My love for Riesling has fueled a costly obsession—and a deep appreciation for a style of wine that is still remarkably difficult to find in California. That is not a criticism of my peers. It is simply the truth as I have experienced it: truly great California Riesling is almost impossible to find.
I set out to change that, LOL....
Admittedly, it remains a work in progress, but I have enjoyed every mile of this strange and unpredictable journey.
In 2021, I bottled a Riesling with a small amount of residual sugar remaining. The wine refermented in bottle, and that is when the best wine I have ever made was accidentally born.
When we opened our wine bar in downtown Napa, that accidental sparkling Riesling quickly became our most popular wine. Its success created a new problem: I had to figure out how to reproduce it intentionally—and package it safely in something that would not explode without warning.
Somewhere Between Ancestral and Traditional
Our process now lives somewhere between the ancestral natty method and méthode champenoise.
We whole-cluster press the Riesling, then allow the juice to ferment with its indigenous yeasts. When it reaches the residual sugar level associated with a brut Champagne we freeze the tank, naturally arresting fermentation.
There are no additions. No inoculated yeast. No unnecessary intervention. This is as close to zéro-zéro as a wine can get, with the indigenous yeasts serving as the engine that transforms the composition of the grapes into wine.
We then bottle the still Riesling under crown cap and allow those pesky little fuckers to finish the job in the cool, still darkness of our fulfillment warehouse—with little more than time, pressure, and our best wishes.
What began as obsession became an accident and then ultimately became our most popular wine.
A Labor of Love
If you have not tasted this year’s release, it is already too late. The current vintage has sold out. It usually only takes about 6 weeks for us to sell through all of our inventory. Allocations suck and that is not our vibe but sometimes when the bread is hot and fresh it goes really fast.
No worries the 2026 Riesling is now fermenting and should be bottled soon. If everything goes according to plan—or at least according to whatever version of a plan this wine is willing to accept—we expect to release it toward the end of spring, or really once I recover from harvest and muster up the courage to start disgorging the first batch.
This wine is unquestionably a labor of love. It nearly kills me every year, but every ounce of pain, uncertainty, and frustration becomes worthwhile when I see someone taste it for the first time.
Fizzy, natural, and joyful, this wine is everything I hope to be as a person—and probably everything I am not.
But hey, I’ll take what I can get and in this case maybe you should too.
