More than 150 producers. Six distinct wine regions. One golden question: where do you start?
If you’ve been sleeping on California sparkling wine, consider this your wake-up call — poured into a chilled flute, of course. California’s Central Coast is a hub for sparkling wine lovers, with over 150 local sparkling wineries crafting exceptional bubbles across some of the most dramatically beautiful wine country in the world. Once dismissed as too sunny and too young, California’s Central Coast is quietly becoming one of the world’s best places to explore méthode champenoise and unique sparkling wine alternatives.
This isn’t Napa. This isn’t Sonoma. Central Coast California wine country stretches across San Luis Obispo and Santa Barbara counties — two of California’s most exciting wine regions — where transverse mountain ranges funnel cool Pacific air into fog-filled valleys, creating the kind of slow, even ripening that builds the tension, acidity, and delicate fruit character that great sparkling wine demands. The result is California sparkling wine that doesn’t just compare to Champagne — it has its own distinct identity, rooted in a terroir unlike anywhere else on earth…