Wine
Martha Stoumen
Low-intervention California wines from dry-farmed Mediterranean grapes.
- Founded
- 2014
- Founded by
- Martha Stoumen
Making it since
2014
Their story
Martha Stoumen didn't grow up in wine country. She studied geography at UCLA, then worked harvests in Tuscany, Sicily, France, Australia and New Zealand before earning a master's in enology at UC Davis.
She started her own label in 2014, bringing what she learned abroad to old California plantings of Carignan, Nero d'Avola, Zinfandel and other warm-climate grapes. Her wines quickly found a following among natural wine fans for their freshness and drinkability.
How it's made
Fruit comes from dry-farmed vineyards in Mendocino, Contra Costa and Suisun Valley, about half farmed by Stoumen herself and the rest by like-minded growers, all without synthetic pesticides, herbicides or fertilizers. Wines ferment with native yeast, go unfined and unfiltered, and receive only a small sulfur addition, if any, before bottling.
Why we carry them
We love Martha's wines for a weeknight dinner: lively, fresh and easy to pair. They show how good California can taste when it's left alone.
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