Skip to Content

Sonoma’s Sparkling Gem – Visiting Gloria Ferrer Caves and Vineyards!

Share this...

Last Updated on June 8, 2023 by Leah Hall

Check out our experience with sparkling wine in Sonoma Valley at Gloria Ferrer wine!

Mornings in the Sonoma Valley can be magical, especially when the surrounding mountains slip into view as the warm sun chases the morning fog away. Add sipping a little fantastic sparkling wine while sitting on a terrace overlooking the beautiful Sonoma Valley with the mustard flowers blooming and you know your day is definitely starting off right!

 

This is exactly where we found ourselves the other day when we enjoyed spending a morning at Gloria Ferrer Caves and Vineyard, the premier sparkling winemaker in the Sonoma Valley!

 

This post contains sponsored content brought to you by Gloria Ferrer Caves and Vineyard and Experience Sonoma Valley. We were provided a complimentary tasting experiences in exchange for coverage on social media and this blog, but all opinions and views presented here are 100% our own. This post contains affiliate links for products that we think you as readers might find useful, and we make commission off of these! For further information, or if you are interested in working with us please see our Disclaimer page. 

Panoramic view of Gloria Ferrer Caves and Vineyard in Sonoma, California

The road up to Gloria Ferrer Caves and Vineyards winds its way through the beautiful vineyards and olive trees up to the Spanish inspired tasting room!

Gloria Ferrer Vineyard

Rolling up to the iron gates of Gloria Ferrer Vineyard is the first clue that you are going someplace special, as the gates open to a scenic vista of the vineyard set against verdant green mountains that make up the western edge of the Sonoma Valley.

 

A winding road weaves its way through the immaculately tended vines and olive trees up to the buildings that houses the tasting room set on the mountain side overlooking the Sonoma Valley all while looking like something out of a post card! It makes a great first impression, and one can see why the Ferrer family fell in love with this location when they were searching for property back in the 1980s to start a winery!

Sign at the enterence to Gloria Ferrer Caves and Vineyards in Sonoma California.

Every detail of the grounds at the Gloria Ferrer Caves and Vineyards highlights the beautiful surroundings and lush landscape.

Ferrer Family

The Ferrer family has a long history of wine making, with roots all the way back to 17th century Spain and their fine tradition of making Cava and other fine wines under their family winery name Freixenet. The Ferrer family had long thought about opening a winery in the United States and in the 1930’s Pedro Ferrer made his way to the US to try his hand at opening a winery.

 

Unfortunately the economics weren’t right (a little thing called the Great Depression got in the way) and Pedro returned to Spain where he was caught up in the Spanish Civil war and was killed. Pedro’s wife took up the mantle and ran the family winery, establishing a strong history of women having great importance in the Ferrer family wineries!

A visitor at the enterence to the inspired tasting room at Gloria Ferrer Caves and Vineyards.

Leah checking out the grounds on the way up to the Spanish inspired tasting room at Gloria Ferrer Caves and Vineyards.

In the late 1970’s Pedro’s son, Jose and his wife Gloria, visited the west coast of the United States and took a drive up California’s Highway 101 and soon found themselves in a little place known as Sonoma. Like many others that we have met in our travels, Jose and Gloria fell in love with the Sonoma Valley and with extensive experience in the wine business recognized that the area knows as the Valley of the Moon would be ideal for a vineyard.

One of the caves at Sonoma's Gloria Ferrer Caves and Vineyards.

You can’t go to a place named Gloria Ferrer Caves and Vineyards and not see some caves! They have some huge and spectacular caves!

Gloria Ferrer in Sonoma

In 1982, Jose and Gloria again visited Sonoma, but this time with the intention of fulfilling his father’s dream of a winery in the United States. Searching the valley, they found a nice plot of land that was serving as a cattle ranch at the foot of the spine of mountains that separates Sonoma Valley from the Petaluma Gap and the valleys to the west.

Recognizing the gently rolling hills would be ideal for growing grapes and for building the underground caves that were the best way to store and age wine, Jose purchased the property and the transformation from cattle ranch to vineyard was soon underway, with Jose naming the vineyard after his wife and muse, Gloria!

The tasting room at Sonoma's Gloria Ferrer Caves and Vineyards.

Yes the views on the terrace of Gloria Ferrer Vineyards is pretty spectacular, but the tasting room is pretty decent too!

Sparkling Wine

With their family history of sparkling wine, it was only natural that Gloria Ferrer Vineyard would make sparkling wine, and in 1986 the vineyard opened its doors as Carneros’ first sparkling wine house. Initially they made their sparkling wines with Pinot Noir, which results in some lovely crisp sparkling wines, but wanted to keep pushing the art of sparkling wine, so visited France and came back with clones of chardonnay and pinot noir grapes from the Champagne region and planted them in the Carneros area.

Picture of a bluebird on wine barrel. Wine bottles on top

Gloria Ferrer Vineyards

Gloria Ferrer Vineyards became known as innovators in the grape growing business by studying new clones and constantly striving to improve the quality of the vines and grapes that are grown on their estates! When visiting the vineyards, you might hear the term clones thrown around by folks when talking about the vines that grow the grapes.

 

What is a clone? A clone is basically a cutting off of a mature vine that is either grafted onto a root stock or planted directly into the ground.

 

Unlike a normal vine which has the genetic material of two vines, the clone is a direct copy of the original plant. Wine makers can select specific characteristics (like specific flavor, disease resistance, or ability to grow in challenging conditions) from vines growing in the fields and grow more vines that perform well in the fields and help limit the changes that occur when grape vines mutate when normal reproduction occurs.

Bottles of wine with awards and painted bluebird houses for charity.

Award winning wines and bluebird boxes! Gloria Ferrer Vineyards partners with Sonoma Valley’s WillMar Center for Bereaved Children to sell birdhouses to raise money for the center. Oh and the birdhouses? They house bluebirds that act as a natural pest control by eating many of the insects that hurt the grapes!

Gloria Ferrer Winemaking

Gloria Ferrer Vineyards’ cloning program allows their award winning winemakers to carefully select vines that produce incredible grapes that fit the Carneros region and coax out amazing flavors that reveal themselves in your glass. Combining their careful selection of vines with their commitment to using time-honored méthode traditionelle winemaking techniques has given head winemaker Bob Iantosca and vineyard manager Mike Crumly the ability to create award winning wines! In fact Gloria Ferrer vineyards has produced more than 500 gold medal winning wines!

Man holding a champagne bottle with red ribbon on it

Wine Tasting

Speaking of those wines, wow were they good! We started out the day sipping on a glass of their 2006 Carneros Cuvee, a special blend of Pinot Noir and Chardonnay that is only made during select vintage years when the winemakers deem the harvest to be of exceptional quality! Sipping on this glass, we could see why this blend is considered special, the wine crisp and slightly tart, with a wonderful note of floral and citrus that was refreshing and delightful to sip on as we walked the grounds with our hosts learning about all that makes Gloria Ferrer Vineyards a special place!

Four champange flutes filled with varieties of Gloria Ferrer Sparkling wine.

A fine selection of bubbles to taste, starting with Gloria Ferrer’s Sonama Brut, Blanc de Noirs, Brut Rose, and the 2010 Anniversary Cuvee, all while overlooking the beautiful vineyards at Gloria Ferrer Caves and Vineyards!

What Wines did we Sample?

We also had the chance to sample two of Gloria Ferrer’s non-vintage sparkling wines, the Sonoma Brut and Blanc de Noirs. This pair of sparking wines was fun to get to compare as they are both made of a similar blend of grapes, but treated slightly different in the wine making process to create two totally different but equally delicious sparkling wines!

 

Made primarily of hand harvested Pinot Noir grapes with a small percentage of Chardonnay mixed in, these two sparkling wines are favorites of folks who are fans of great bubbly!

Plate with cheeses, nuts and olives. Champagne glasses and bottles in back

The Sonoma Brut might be the most famous of Gloria Ferrer Vineyard’s sparkling wines, a classic sparkling wine made in the classic Méthode Champenoise style that is especially effervescent! Made mostly from Pinot Noir grapes with a small percentage of Chardonnay grapes blended in, the Sonoma Brut has a rich aromatic flavor that is full of floral, apple and pears.

 

And while some sparkling wines can be overly sweet, the Gloria Ferrer wine Sonoma Brut has a pleasant acidity that keeps it very refreshing on the palate!

 

Like the Sonoma Brut, the Gloria Ferrer Blanc de Noirs is made with a majority of Pinot Noir grapes with eight percent Chardonnay grapes blended in, but this variety the juice is allowed to stay in contact with the skins for 24 hours and then blended with a little vin gris to add a creamy blush character to the wine. The contact also adds a hint of berry and stone fruit to the Blanc de Noirs which is delightful when combined with the really lively bubbles that makes this sparkling wine feel especially luxurious!

The view from the tasting terrace at Gloria Ferrer Caves and Vineyards in Sonoma Valley.

We keep gushing about the amazing view from the terrace at Gloria Ferrer… Well see for yourself!

Wines to Try

The final wine we had the chance to sample while sitting on the terrace was the 2010 Anniversary Cuvee, a limited edition sparkling wine that was created solely to celebrate life! Made in the méthode traditionelle style of a blend of 67% Pinot Noir and 33% Chardonnay, the wine is made up from 14 different lots of wine all harvested in 2010 and then allowed to mature in the bottle for over five years. Only the juice from the first pressing is used to make up this wine, which makes for a more delicate and nuanced wine that feels especially elegant.

 

Both of us really loved this sparkling wine (full disclosure, this is the bottle that came home with us, so we are kinda partial to this!) and definitely can see this sparkling wine finding its way to our table for special occasions (or if we are really being honest, celebrating any little old occasion cause it really is that good!)

Sparkling wine in a chapagne flute.

The Sonoma Brut by Gloria Ferrer Vineyards. Perfection in a glass!

If You are Looking for More Wine Posts, Try These!

 

We loved our trip to Gloria Ferrer wine and can’t wait to visit again soon! After all, bubbles this good make life glorious!

 

Check out our wine tastings at Sonoma County Wineries! If you are looking for a hotel, we have some great Healdsburg options! Plus, go eat at The Matheson Healdsburg, too! Or, if you are headed north, stop at Humboldt Bay Social Club or Humboldt Distillery.

 

If you are going to wine country, we recommend renting a VRBO Rental Location to stay at, or the Gaige House in Glen Ellen!

A selfie of a man and woman in front of the Sonoma Valley from the overlook at the Gloria Ferrer Caves and Vineyards in Sonoma California.

We couldn’t resist a selfie in front of this view! We were a little excited to check Gloria Ferrer Vineyards out!

Cheers!

 

Also, don’t forget to follow us on Instagram and tag #gastronomcocktails so we can see all the wonderful recipes YOU recreate from this site!

 

You can also subscribe to our newsletter so you never miss a delicious recipe again!

 

Like this post? Try these below, too!

Woman standing at the bar of the Prohibition Spirits Tasting Room in Sonoma, CaliforniaProhibition Spirits in Sonoma, California

 

Group picture of The Gastronomblog and friends in the vineyards at Benessere.Napa is Open!

 

Interested in stocking your own home bar? Make sure to see our favorites at our Amazon Store!

 

If you liked this post, don’t forget to subscribe for new (and of course free) recipes by entering your email address on the side bar (and get all the recipes delivered to your inbox when we post), so you don’t miss out on a thing. You can find us on Facebook, Instagram, and Pinterest!

 

Gastronomblog is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to amazon.com

Share this...

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.