22-05-2025
- Entertainment
- San Francisco Chronicle
A new sparkling wine captures the California coast
When Courtney Humiston set out to create a sparkling wine label, she didn't quite know how to describe her vision. Unlike many California wine producers, she was not trying to emulate the rich, long-aged style of Champagne. But she was certainly not making a fizzy, lighthearted pet-nat either.
What Humiston had in mind was a wine that was bright and fruity but still had the precise bubbles of the Champagne method. Then she realized that there was a French model for the style she hoped to produce: crémant, French wines that are made in the Champagne method but not in the Champagne region. 'California crémant' is how she now refers to her project, Delphinium Wine Co., named for an endangered species of larkspur flower native to Sonoma and Marin counties.
Crémant wines incorporate the signature grapes of their places of origin: Instead of defaulting to Champagne's typical roster of Pinot Noir and Chardonnay, a Crémant de Loire might be made from Loire Valley standbys like Chenin Blanc and Cabernet Franc.
The category encompasses a range of styles, but broadly speaking, crémant tends to taste less toasty and complex than Champagne, largely due to the fact that it spends less time aging on its lees — the dead yeast cells that, over time, impart those nutty, brioche-like notes that Champagne has become known for. Whereas Champagne must by law age on its lees for at least a year — and vintage Champagnes for at least three years — the minimum aging time for crémant is nine months.
'I wanted methode Champenoise, disgorged, but more following the laws of Crémant de Loire,' Humiston said. 'Shorter time on lees, more freshness.'
Humiston has a long career in Bay Area wine. She's the former wine director at Dry Creek Kitchen in Healdsburg and Petit Crenn and Maybeck's in San Francisco; until last year, she was the director of hospitality for Healdsburg's Idlewild Wines. She is also a writer, a onetime wine columnist for 7x7, and as of this month a critic for where she will review wines from Sonoma County, Mendocino County, Oregon and Washington.
The drive to start Delphinium came during the pandemic, when she was living in the coastal Sonoma County town of Jenner and had a moment to take a break from 'the constant grind of restaurants,' she said. 'It was pretty draining, and I felt like I kind of lost myself after years of running other people's projects.'
She could already taste the wine she wanted to make. She wanted to capture the flavors and aromas that she experienced while sitting on her porch in Jenner: salty sea air, tiny spring wildflowers, heady lupine.
Now she just needed to find grapes that could do that. 'I was almost manifesting terroir,' Humiston said. Starting with the 2021 vintage, she experimented with a range of different grape varieties and vineyards, everything from Riesling to Tocai Friulano. It wasn't until last year that she felt like she actually got it right.
The current Delphinium blend, which Humiston produces at Brick & Mortar Wines in Healdsburg, is 60% Sauvignon Blanc and 40% Chardonnay, both from Mendocino County vineyards. The Sauvignon Blanc is the musque clone, an increasingly rare planting in California that is extra-aromatic. It tends to smell more tropical, and less grassy and citrusy, than the prototypical Sauvignon Blanc. The wine spent 10 months on the lees.
Despite the fact that it is bone-dry — there's no dosage, a sugary solution added to most Champagne-method wines — the 2023 Delphinium ($45, 12.8%) has a sweetly fruity side to it, reminiscent of candied grapefruit. It's crisp, with bubbles that taste creamier and softer than what you'd expect from Champagne. I can't say I've ever had the pleasure of inhaling a delphinium flower, but the wine does smell resoundingly floral.
Humiston is ramping up. She made 1,500 cases of Delphinium in 2024, a big hike from the 500 cases she'd made the year before. She's trying to grow her presence by hosting special, intensive events, like an early-morning seaweed foraging lesson at the Sea Ranch Lodge and an excursion to the Rancho Meladuco date farm in the Coachella Valley.
'Something that I learned during COVID living in Jenner was just how to live with all your senses engaged,' said Humiston. 'That's why Delphinium exists.'
