Winemaking team members Rob Degner, Jim Cerullo, Dan Bissell (Head Winemaker), and Rosa Bissell hold bottles of just bottled Traditional Method Sparkling Wine

After nearly three years in the making, and many years in our minds, our first ever true sparkling wine is released!

Vista Wine Club members have had the exclusive opportunity to purchase this wine and were able to taste it at the June Vista Wine Club Picnic.

The 2020 Sparkling Zweigelt is made with the Méthode Champenoise, or Traditional Method. After an excellent 2020 harvest, the grapes were gently whole cluster pressed to extract the ripest juice, leaving phenolics behind. The wine was bottled in April of 2021 after the first fermentation, and then spent 22 months in tirage.

The Traditional Method involves use of a secondary, in-bottle fermentation. This second yeast addition is what creates carbonation, resulting in finely textured bubbles in the finished wine. Bottles must be turned by hand on a riddling rack, and care is taken to extract in-bottle lees that develop during the course of the secondary fermentation (disgorging). Basically, great care was taken in growing, harvesting, pressing, fermenting, and making this wine!

Zweigelt is a red-skinned, red-fleshed grape. Yet this wine can be termed a Blanc de Noir--white wine from red grapes. The grapes hail from Harry Humphreys meticulously cared for vineyard. The Zweigelt grape has been around just over 100 years. It was created in Austria in 1922 from Blaufrankisch and St. Laurent parentage.

This dry sparkling wine is elegant and lively, with faint raspberry and fresh vanilla. Enjoy it with so many foods! Some ideas are soft and nutty cheeses, macadamia-crusted haibut, and pork tenerloin. We're so thrilled with the final result of this wine!

We've only made 70 cases of this wine, and it can be purchased by the bottle for $42.99 each. What is left will open up for purchase by non-members at our Zweigles and Zweigelt event August 19.

Sparkling Zweigelt