A California sparkling made from juice rather than wine, by a house that has made bubbles since the 1930s.
Chateau de Fleur is a Champagnette — a sparkling drink made from juice and carbonated, rather than a wine with the alcohol taken out. Nothing is fermented, so nothing has to be removed, and the result is fruit-forward and frankly sweet. Apple and peach with a citrus lift.
It comes from Weibel, a California house with a long history in bubbles. Rudolph Weibel and his son Fred left Switzerland in 1937 and were making sparkling wine in the basement of San Francisco's William Tell Hotel by 1938. In 1946 they bought a hundred acres of neglected vineyard at Mission San Jose that had once belonged to Governor Leland Stanford, and spent the next fifty years there before moving to Lodi.
What that lineage buys this bottle is the look and feel of the real thing — a pale straw pour and a fine, persistent bead — in a drink anyone at the table can have. It is the bottle for a room full of people rather than a glass for one.
- Producer
- Chateau de Fleur
- Based in
- United States
- Sizes
- 750 mL
