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Domaine Carneros is a Napa Valley sparkling winery founded in 1987 by the Taittinger family of Champagne with winemaker Eileen Crane. Its château, finished in 1989 and modeled on an 18th-century French estate, crowns a knoll high above San Francisco Bay, and its estate vineyards cover about 400 acres of the cool Carneros region.
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The Château Up on the Knoll
In 1987 Claude Taittinger, heir of one of Champagne's great houses, picked a cool 138-acre slope down in Carneros and chose a California winemaker, Eileen Crane, to run an American outpost. Then he built the building that tells the story: a château finished in 1989, modeled on the 18th-century Château de la Marquetterie in Champagne, set on a knoll above the vines and the bay. From the road below it is unmistakable. Stand in front of it for a minute and read the symmetry — every arch repeats the French original an ocean and a continent away.
Waiting Six Years for the Bubbles
Everything here is méthode traditionnelle: a second fermentation in the bottle and years of patience, the Champagne way. Domaine Carneros then adds time on top of time. Its vintage cuvées rest on the lees for at least three years, and its prestige Blanc de Blancs, called Le Rêve, waits a full six before it is released. It grows its own answers too, drawing from about four hundred estate acres that supply ninety-five percent of the grapes. Take a seat on the patio and watch the bubbles climb in a flute — that steady line is the whole method made visible.
Taste, Then Look Across the Valley
Below the château the ground falls away in staircases and formal gardens, and the terrace hangs over the whole reach of vineyards rolling toward San Francisco Bay. The winery has made still Pinot Noir since 1992, so the pour can swing from Brut to red and back. Order a tasting and ask for the Le Rêve if it is open; sit in the marble-floored salon as the evening light drops over the bay, and let the view work as slowly as the wine does.