Martha Stoumen Venturi Vineyard Carignan

About Martha Stoumen Venturi Vineyard Carignan

Martha Stoumen Venturi Vineyard Carignan shows vivacious aromas of dried earth, California chaparral, and raspberry jam smeared on a stone and left to dry in the sun. Our Carignan Long Élevage spent 1.5 years in barrel. It maintains Venturi Vineyard’s distinct dusty tannins, but additional aging gave this wine a richer and more savory structure. We liken this to a California version of a cru Beaujolais: easy drinking and food-friendly, with great acidity. For food pairings, go with richer dishes with a bit of a char – think lamb kebabs, wood-fired pizza, and oxtail stew. This wine adds an uplifting dimension to every dinner whether it’s takeout, leftovers, or a homemade favorite.

The Carignan was harvested by hand, kept whole-cluster, and fermented in an open-top stainless steel tank. A few bins of grapes were foot tread to encourage the onset of fermentation, while the remaining majority of the whole clusters were loaded on top. During the early stages of fermentation, gentle body punch-downs and short pump-overs were used in order to limit extraction. After 11 days, the fermenting juice was racked and returned back to the tank (délestage) and a seal was placed on the tank to begin an extended maceration. After an additional 19 days, the tank was drained and pressed, and the wine was racked to neutral oak barrels to age. The initial release of 2019 Venturi Carignan was kept in barrel for 9 months before racking and final blending; for the extended elevage series, Martha selected 6 barrels to continue to age for 18 months in total in neutral French oak barrels before bottling. Only 143 cases were made.

About Martha Stoumen

Martha Stoumen Wines was founded upon the desire to recapture a farming and winemaking culture that has all but faded away: a winemaking culture of patience. She grows grapes and crafts natural wine in Northern California. After 8 years of apprenticing around the world, Martha set out as a self-funded, first-generation winemaker to answer the question, “What does California taste like?” In her little corner of Northern California, Mediterranean grapes thrive and healthy vineyards allow Martha to create joyful balanced wines. The wines are made from unexpected varietals and offer new takes on California classics.

Martha does things the right way even if it’s not the easy or cool way. Of the dozen or so wines she makes every year, blends and flavors change but her desire to share the simple pleasures of natural wine remains the same. When Martha founded the company in 2014, she started by exploring warm and breezy regions that allow for natural farming. She was thrilled to find a handful of dedicated farmers, primarily growing Mediterranean grapes in the Ukiah area of Mendocino County, Contra Costa County, and Suisun Valley. She has been making wine from their fruit and laughing with them ever since. Martha also found two traditionally planted, head-trained, dry-farmed vineyards that she now leases, allowing her to farm 25% of the winery’s production.

Martha’s main goal is to create complex, delicious wines, and, simple as it sounds, the best way to do this is by using complex, delicious grapes. Healthy grapes contain every ingredient necessary to make wine. Each berry contains sugar and acid in the pith, tannin in the skin and stems, and a rich bloom of yeast and bacteria on the clusters. She embraces the idea that wine is an agricultural product, and no two wines should taste the same. Instead of using a single commercial yeast species, Martha embraces native fermentations and the many flavors a diversity of microbes bring to her wines.

In the cellar, she strives to create the conditions for the natural process of fermentation to thrive. Rather than trying to tightly control the transition from grapes to wine from within the juice, she prepares with a rigorous cellar cleaning. From there Martha intimately monitors every fermentation. Everyone in the winery works with their hands, feet, and human energy to bring these wines to life, and are energized by this process. Harvest heals, excites, inspires, and connects Martha’s team every year.