Schramsberg

Schramsberg Review

Founded in the 1860s, Schramsberg, one of Napa's oldest wineries, produces a variety of bubblies made using the traditional méthode champenoise (which means, among other things, that the wine undergoes a second fermentation in the bottle before being "riddled," or turned every few days over a period of weeks, to nudge the sediment into the neck of the bottle). If you want to taste, you must tour first, but what a tour: in addition to getting a glimpse of the winery's historic architecture, you get to tour the cellars dug in the late 19th century by Chinese laborers, where a mind-boggling 2 million bottles are stacked in gravity-defying configurations. The tour fee includes generous pours of several very different sparkling wines.