We recently visited the wine regions of Napa Valley and Sonoma in California looking for Champagne American style, hey, its a tough job but somebody has to do it right?
With our love of champagne we wanted to find an American vineyard that produced sparkling wine in a similar way to the Champagne region of France.
When we visited the Calistoga Inn Restaurant & Brewery the sommelier advised us to visit the nearby Schramsberg winery run by the Davies family since 1965. The emblem of the estate is a frog and there is a pond near the entrance to the reception that has a large ‘dancing’ frog in the middle.
Schramsberg produces its wine in a way that mimics French Champagne and they like to say they use Méthode Traditionelle but for of the obvious reason that the wines are American, they have to call it ‘Sparkling Wine’ and not Champagne. Like so many vineyards in Napa Valley they have a wine club where they give members access to exclusive bottlings.
We tried the Schramsberg Blanc de Blanc (served by President Nixon at the White House) which is very like champagne American style.
We also tried their Blanc de Noir, which very unusually contains 19% Chardonnay and would not be classified Blanc de Noir in France.
Schramsberg is a lovely estate that makes extremely good sparkling wine which they obviously take a lot of pride in and rightly so.
But like all good Californian wine it comes at a cost, and you pay a lot for a bottle.
The opinions in this article are those of the Champagnion.co.uk. We do not market or sell Champagne for this producer.