BURGUNDY PRODUCER ETIENNE DE MONTILLE CO-CREATES RACINES WINES, HIS CALIFORNIA PROJECT
Racines Wines is a collaboration between three accomplished French winemakers: Etienne de Montille and American Brian Sieve of Burgundy and Rodolphe Peters of Champagne. The goal is to create purity and transparency to create a range of Pinot Noir and Chardonnays and a sparkling wine from the cool climate of Sta. Rita Hills.
This venture represents the coming together of all that is wonderful about Burgundy, Champagne and California. The trio is looking to produce wines that are terroir-driven, elegant, balanced, and they believe there is no better place in the world outside of Burgundy to do this than Sta. Rita Hills in Santa Barbara County California.
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Etienne and Brian discovered Santa Barbara after an exploration of California and Oregon to find a location outside of France for a winemaking venture. A year later Rodolphe joined the team with a similar goal, but for sparkling wine. The team was gifted a sense of liberation from the weight of history that comes with making wine in Burgundy and Champagne.
The multi-generational experience between the three brings different perspectives to wines produced in the cool climate of Sta. Rita Hills. Their knowledge and experiences complement each other in the bottle with a product that has consistent quality and precision that can stand alongside the best produced in France.
If you have ever experienced the De Montille wines, you have felt the electricity that flows through their amazing wines. Much of this excitement comes from their team's ability to highlight the terroir of the region and specifically the vineyards they work with. They have taken this ability and have managed to execute it perfectly for Sta. Rita Hills in the Racines wines.
Etienne, Brian, and Rodolphe have found a similar energy in Sta. Rita Hills. Burgundy drinkers, don’t be deterred by the California appellation; even Randy and Samantha get behind these wines. The Racines wines are special, and while we are usually loathe to label California wines "Burgundian", they come as close as any domestic wines we've experienced.
About the Trio behind Racines Wines:
Like his father before him, Etienne de Montille was a young lawyer who joined Domaine de Montille in 1983 working alongside his father, the legendary Hubert de Montille, to build the domain and push the principles of terroir. By 2002, he completely took over the family's Volnay estate. Instrumental in both organic and, later, biodynamic methods, Etienne was at the heart of the expansion of the holdings to 30 hectares including the acquisition the of Chateau du Puligny- Montrachet, bringing into the estate prized vineyard holdings, including prestigious Premier Cru and Grand Cru vineyards.
This is not Etienne's first adventure in California; he spent some time just after graduating high school exploring the food and wine scene in 1982-1983, working a stint in Berkeley at Chez Panisse where he befriended a young cook Michael Sullivan, inviting him to work a harvest in Burgundy, introducing him to his wife Sylvie, and inspiring him to become one of the West Coast's finest importers, creating Beaune Imports.
If you have ever tasted the wines of Domaine de Montille, you get to experience another level of expression that showcases why these vineyards are some of the best in the world. To have Etienne recognize something similar in the vineyards of Sta. Rita Hills gives you an idea of how exceptional this location is. They are on the lower end of alcohol-by-volume by current California standards, which makes them much more traditional, especially at the table.
Brian Sieve, Etienne’s right hand man in Burgundy, is originally from Indianapolis. This is an American in one of France's most esteemed wine jobs. Chef de Cave at Domaine de Montille since 2010, he has implemented low intervention to achieve maximum expression of the domain's terroir.
Rodolphe Peters, from Champagne Pierre Peters, makes the statement “After more than 15 years of consulting throughout the world and numerous partnership requests outside of France, the wines of Chardonnay and Pinot Noir that I discovered from Santa Barbara finally got me to select the magnificent terroir in Sta. Rita Hills to produce, for the first time, limited qualities of my own sparkling wine within the Racines project." Rodolphe Peters is the 6th generation of the Pierre Peters Champagne family in the southern Cote de Blancs. The family has been producing Grand Cru Blanc de Blanc champagne since 1919. Sleek, racy qualities combining acidity and minerality create some of the most exciting champagnes the world has ever seen.
In early March, Etienne dropped by The Wine Country showcasing Racine's newest releases from the 2020 vintage: Sta. Rita Hills Chardonnay and Pinot Noir as well as single vineyard wines, Chardonnay from Wenzhou vineyard, Bentrock vineyard, and Sanford & Benedict, and Pinot Noirs labeled Saint-Rose, La Rinconada, and Sanford & Benedict. He also showcased the brilliant sparkling wine that Rodolphe makes under the Racines label, and we dare anyone to sample this astonishing bubbly blind and guess it wasn't a fine blanc de blancs from Champagne.
Racine's Pinot Noirs utilize whole cluster fermentation that gives a lift and spices to the wine, and typically creates a burlier, more extracted flavor profile with more weight and volume for aging potential. The estate's Chardonnay comes from ancient marine sea beds that gives a sense of energy and transparency and precision. These wines are being crafted by the hands of masters of Chardonnay using hundreds of years of Burgundian and Champagne winemaking tradition, giving these rare wines something rarely found in California winemaking: brilliance and finesse.