Martha Stoumen Wines

Martha Stoumen Wines is a one-woman grape growing and natural winemaking project out of Northern California that was founded upon the desire to recapture a farming and winemaking culture that has all but faded away--a winemaking culture of patience. Martha works with varieties with history in California, such as Carignan and Zinfandel, as well as those she's helping to pioneer in California’, including Nero d’Avola. Martha leases and farms 75% of her vineyards, which is becoming more and more rare in California amongst winemakers today. She focuses on biodiversity, and prunes with vine longevity in mind. She farms the vineyards in a way that maintains healthy ecosystems using traditional farming and winemaking practices.

Minimalist winemaking techniques are used in the cellar, including letting the natural yeast and bacteria on the grape skins perform the fermentation, and allowing longer macerations and aging to provide stability rather than adding tannins, acid, or stabilizing agents in the wines. Martha learned these traditional winemaking practices while apprenticing in Italy and France.

"For my wines I lease and farm around half of the vineyards myself. The other half are farmed by multi-generation farmers who understand their land, and their family's land, far better than I ever will, and who farm with my same philosophies in mind. Patience in the vineyard means composting rather than adding synthetic fertilizers, allowing predatory insects the ability to outcompete pests rather than spraying insecticides, and doing proper handwork, such as pruning for vine longevity rather than high yields." - Martha Stoumen