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California isn’t just a place, it’s a perspective. It’s 75 and sunny, avocado on everything, and the Beach Boys playing with the windows rolled down on a drive up the PCH. But if there’s one thing that hasn’t quite gelled with this picture, it’s California wine. Stodgy and expected, the steakhouse bottles of the ’90s were a far cry from the state’s signature free spirit; there is nothing “chill” about a trophy wine like Opus One. But a different style is finally taking hold, and it’s redefining what California wine is all about. Forget buttery Chardonnays and ginormous Cabs. A new generation of progressive winemakers is breaking the rules of heavy oak and high alcohol to make wines that are lighter, brighter, and way more fun. This is wine the California way, and it’s never tasted so good. Here are 5 West Coast winemakers you need to know about.
Want to know more about the California winemakers we love right now? Check out this week's podcast episode! Correction: In the BA Foodcast, Lou Wine Shop is located on Hillhurst and Franklin in Los Angeles, not Hillhurst and Fountain.
Finding Champagne on the West Coast
The biochemist turned winemaker is the Tarantino of fizz: prolific and irreverent. He consults on sparkling-wine projects for fellow winemakers around the state, and his Champagne-style Ultramarine is, to wine nerds, a status symbol akin to Krug.
Try: Ultramarine is near unfindable, so look for his Sparkling Valdiguié, $30
Doing the whole urban winery thing
This couple quit their tech jobs to start a tiny operation in a graffitied warehouse (classic Berkeley, right?). They trained with a natural wine master in France, and apply those skills to wines that range from funky pet-nat to classic Rhône blends with grapes like Grenache and Syrah.
Try: Donkey & Goat Sluice Box, $28
Repping a new wave
She not only makes her own easy-to-drink wines under the label Oeno. She distributes the wares of fellow makers, too—because great wine means nothing if no one can find it. Her portfolio reads like an MLB All-Star list of small-scale heavy hitters, and most locally focused wine lists in the state have her to thank.
Try: Oeno Russian River Rosé, $23
Keeping Napa cool
The classic rock of the movement, Matthiasson enacts change right in Napa, the epicenter of butter and oak. He consults for high-profile labels, and produces defiantly restrained and classy Cabs and Chards of his own. (This is the wine to impress your boss or parents.)
Try: Matthiasson Cab. Sauvignon, $60
Putting the farm back in winemaking
Farmers as much as winemakers (they keep goats as well as vines), this couple makes unfiltered, unconventional “field blends” from a mix of whatever grapes happen to grow together (chemical-free) in their Sierra Foothills vineyards.
Try: La Clarine Farm, Jambalaia Rouge, $25
Scholium Project
Stolpman
Arnot-Roberts
Scribe
Los Pilares
Dirty & Rowdy
Lo-Fi
Broc Cellars
Massican
Folk Machine
Sandlands
Bedrock
J. Brix
Field Recordings
Turley
Wind Gap
Methode Sauvage
Ryme
Chanin
Living Wine Collective
AmByth Estate
Vesper