United States · Napa

Racines

Racines is a Santa Rita Hills project led by Étienne de Montille, Brian Sieve and Rodolphe Péters, making Pinot Noir, Chardonnay and sparkling wine from cool, maritime-influenced vineyards.

The producer

Racines brings Étienne de Montille and Brian Sieve’s Burgundy background together with Rodolphe Péters’s Champagne experience in the Santa Rita Hills area of Santa Barbara County. The project works with cool, maritime-influenced vineyards for Pinot Noir, Chardonnay and sparkling wine, and bottles small quantities of single-vineyard wines from Sanford & Benedict, Bentrock, La Rinconada and Wenzlau. Its estate vineyard joined the range with the 2023 vintage.

Pinot Noir ferments with native yeast, whole clusters and pigéage, followed by extended élevage. The 2020 Sanford & Benedict Pinot Noir spent 19 months in French oak, with 30 percent new oak. The 2020 La Rinconada shows concentrated yet supple and silky fruit, fresh red fruit, savory herbs, wet stone, anise and smoke. Bentrock Chardonnay brings lemon peel, white flowers, slate, crushed rocks, mint, salinity and a textured finish.

Known for

Small-quantity single-vineyard Sta. Rita Hills wines, with native-yeast fermentation, whole-cluster Pinot Noir, pigéage and extended élevage, plus sparkling wines shaped by Péters’s Champagne background.

Notable facts

The story

Ryan Hannaford joins Racines in 2021.

In 2021, a new name joined the Racines team. Étienne de Montille and Brian Sieve, whose search for a project beyond France had settled on Santa Rita Hills, were already working with Rodolphe Péters, who had joined to create sparkling wines from the area. Ryan Hannaford arrived that year as the onsite winemaker and viticulturalist. His title covered both halves of the work, the vines that supplied the fruit and the cellar that turned it into Pinot Noir, Chardonnay and sparkling wine. The collaboration had begun with partners from Burgundy and Champagne; by 2021, its California base also had a named person working on site across vineyard and winery.

From the atlas

Racines

At A Glance

Racines is a Santa Rita Hills project in Santa Barbara County led by Étienne de Montille and Brian Sieve of Burgundy with Rodolphe Péters of Champagne. Its wines follow three paths through the same cool, maritime-influenced area: Pinot Noir, Chardonnay and sparkling wine. Small quantities of single-vineyard wines place named sites at the centre of the range.

The Producer

Racines brings together Burgundian experience with Pinot Noir and Chardonnay and Péters's Champagne background for sparkling wine from California's Central Coast. The project is based around the Santa Rita Hills area, where cool maritime conditions support grapes with freshness and long growing seasons. The label therefore carries several kinds of information at once: Pinot Noir and Chardonnay identify the grapes, Sta. Rita Hills identifies the appellation, and vineyard names narrow the focus to a particular site.

The range is deliberately tied to place. Racines works with Sanford & Benedict, Bentrock, La Rinconada and Wenzlau, alongside its own estate vineyard, which entered the range with the 2023 vintage. These are not interchangeable sources in the cellar. Each single-vineyard bottling keeps the vineyard name visible, so the bottle can be read through its slope, soil and grape.

Place

Santa Rita Hills is an area of Santa Barbara County shaped by the Pacific. Racines focuses on vineyards with maritime influence, and its Chardonnay sites sit several miles from the ocean on ancient marine seabeds. That setting supports a white wine style with freshness, mineral flavour and saline length, even when the fruit has enough ripeness to carry richness.

For Pinot Noir, the same cool influence supports wines with fresh fruit and a lifted aromatic register. The appellation is not a decorative address on the label. It explains why Racines can work across still red wine, still white wine and sparkling wine while keeping acidity central to the range.

Soil And Site

Sanford & Benedict supplies one of Racines's clearest site stories. The fruit comes from original plantings dating to 1971, described as the oldest vines in the Sta. Rita Hills. The parcel lies on a gently north-facing slope with thin soils containing shale and chert. Those conditions place the wine in a site with old vines, limited soil depth and a rocky mineral base.

The vineyard name matters because Racines bottles the site separately. A Sanford & Benedict Pinot Noir is therefore a single-vineyard wine from a historic planting, not simply a regional Pinot Noir with a more specific label.

Story

The project began with Étienne de Montille and Brian Sieve looking through California and Oregon for a venture beyond France. Their search moved toward Santa Rita Hills, where the climate and vineyards offered a new setting for work rooted in Burgundy. The choice of California changed the raw material, but kept the focus on Pinot Noir, Chardonnay and site-specific bottles.

A year later, Rodolphe Péters joined with the purpose of creating sparkling wines from Santa Rita Hills. That addition widened the project from a Burgundian-inspired still-wine venture into a collaboration with a distinct Champagne strand. Racines's range grew from the meeting of those three people and the vineyards they found in California.

Vineyards And Cellar

The Racines team farms Wenzlau Vineyard using organic practices. That claim belongs to Wenzlau, not automatically to every vineyard in the range. Keeping the farming detail attached to its named site preserves the connection between vineyard work and bottle.

In the cellar, Pinot Noir ferments with native yeast, whole clusters and pigéage throughout fermentation, followed by extended élevage. Whole-cluster fermentation brings lift and spiciness to the wine, while pigéage works the fermenting grapes through the cap. The resulting Pinot Noir is shaped by perfume, spice and a longer development in the cellar, not by fruit alone.

Wines

Pinot Noir is the main red-wine strand, with small-quantity single-vineyard bottlings from Sanford & Benedict, Bentrock, La Rinconada and Wenzlau. The range moves from the cool Santa Rita Hills appellation into named parcels, allowing the bottles to differ through site while sharing the grape and maritime climate.

The 2020 Sanford & Benedict Pinot Noir shows how Racines handles élevage: it spent 19 months in French oak, with 30 percent new oak. That is a clear cellar marker, alongside native yeast, whole clusters, pigéage and extended ageing. The wine's likely shape is therefore linked to time, spice, lift and oak seasoning, with the vineyard remaining central.

Chardonnay forms the white-wine strand, with Bentrock among the named sites. Sparkling wine forms the third strand, created with Péters's Champagne background and sourced from the Santa Rita Hills. The available material establishes the place and purpose of these wines, while leaving dosage, bottle ageing and blend composition unstated.

In The Glass

The 2020 Bentrock Chardonnay opens with lemon peel and white flowers, then moves toward slate, crushed rocks and mint. On the palate, richness meets energy, while mineral flavour and salinity carry the wine through a textured finish. The ancient marine seabed sites several miles inland from the ocean supply the setting for that combination of ripe fruit, savoury detail and mineral length.

Racines Pinot Noir takes a different route. Whole clusters bring lift and spiciness during fermentation, so the wine's perfume and palate are linked to the treatment of the fruit. In the sparkling wines, the Santa Rita Hills setting is joined by Péters's Champagne role, placing freshness and the coastal growing climate at the centre of the project.

A Bottle To Understand It

Start with the 2020 La Rinconada Pinot Noir. It is a single-vineyard Sta. Rita Hills red, and its taste is unusually complete in the available range: concentrated yet supple and silky, with fresh red fruit, savoury herbs, wet stone, anise and smoke. The wine carries several textures in sequence, from concentration at the centre to a softer, silky feel through the palate, followed by savoury, mineral and smoky notes.

This is the right first bottle because it lets the appellation, the named vineyard and Racines's Pinot Noir work meet in one glass. It is specific enough to show the project's site focus, yet open enough to reveal the red-fruit, herbal and mineral register without requiring a comparison flight.

Anecdote

In 2021, Étienne de Montille, Brian Sieve and Rodolphe Péters were joined by Ryan Hannaford at Racines. Hannaford took on the paired roles of onsite winemaker and viticulturalist, bringing one named person into the project across both the vines and the cellar. Until then, the collaboration had been defined by partners from Burgundy and Champagne searching for a California setting and adding sparkling wine to the plan. Hannaford's arrival added a dedicated onsite role to that working group. The announcement placed him alongside the three founders as the person responsible for wine and vineyard work at Racines.

Final Word

Racines is a Santa Rita Hills project where named vineyards, cool maritime conditions and French cellar methods meet California fruit. The 2020 La Rinconada Pinot Noir is a focused place to begin, while Bentrock Chardonnay and the sparkling wines show how far the collaboration extends beyond one grape or one colour.

Sources

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