Peter Cellars
Peter Mauel picks by taste and says so: not pH, not TA, not sugar, but walking the rows two or three times a day near harvest. Tasting is twenty-seven fifty, by appointment.1
Why go
Mauel grew up in the United Kingdom and spent long stretches at wine houses in Burgundy and Bordeaux.1 He moved to California in the early 1990s for an MBA and a career in software.1 At the turn of the millennium he decided to make wine and went to UC Davis for the oenology.1 His own site dates the start two ways, 2003 on one page and 2005 on another, with 2003 also given as the first vintage.1 He bought the Carneros Estate Vineyard in 2010.1 He built the winery on it, and he makes everything and holds every tasting there.1
The cellar is where this gets interesting. Fruit is hand-sorted and fully de-stemmed.1 The Pinot Noir gets the longer cold soak.1 Fermentation runs in one-ton open-top bins with the clone lots kept apart, and the punch-downs go in by hand three or four times a day.1 The 2003 Cabernet sat on skins for fifteen days past dryness.1 Everything goes into French oak, 30 to 50 percent new by varietal.1 The barrels come from Cadus, François Frères, Dargaud & Jaegle, Damy and Mercurey, mostly Nevers, Allier and Vosges wood at medium-plus toast.1
Production is small and he sells the wine direct from the winery only.1
Order this / avoid
- Order: the Carneros Estate Pinot Noir, which gets the longest cold soak and the hand punch-downs.1
- Order: the Winemaker Experience at $45, an in-depth tasting where Mauel walks you through the wines, the vineyards and his cellar.1
- Order: the Estate Tasting at $27.50 if you want the short version.1
- Avoid: reading the medals on the shop page as evidence. Not one of them names a competition, a year or a publication.
What locals & experts say
- Peter Mauel, on when to pick:
We do not pick the fruit based on numbers, i.e. pH, TA, or sugar levels, but rather by how they taste as they near optimal ripeness.
1 - Mauel on his coopers: the barrels get
a long, soft, deep toasting allowing a true respect of the fruit and wine characteristics,
which he sets against the heavy toasting that leaves wines tasting of oak.1
Good to know
- By appointment only, in a small tasting salon at the estate, booked through a form on the winery's own site.1
- The Vineyard Lounge is also $45, which puts you among the vines at the historic Carneros vineyard.1
- There are two vineyard stays on the property, a guest cottage sleeping two and a farmhouse sleeping eight or more.1
- Two winery dogs live here, Harry and Meghan, both whelped on 1 September 2019, and they are in the logo.1
Verdict
could-visit — Everything is hand-sorted and fully de-stemmed, the clone lots stay apart in one-ton open-top bins, and the punch-downs go in by hand three or four times a day. He buys barrels from Cadus, François Frères, Dargaud & Jaegle, Damy and Mercurey, mostly Nevers, Allier and Vosges wood at medium-plus toast, which is a level of detail almost no winery publishes. Against that, his own site is the only source there is, it cannot agree whether he started in 2003 or 2005, and the medals it advertises name no competition.