A bottle of Clos Saron Black Pearl changed Aaron and Cara Mockrish's lives, turning a plan to start a farm in the Sierra Foothills into a calling to make natural wine high above California's Central Valley.
Backstory
Aaron and Cara Mockrish, both originally from the East Coast, settled in Oregon House in North Yuba County intending to farm. After tasting Clos Saron's Black Pearl 2008 and discovering its maker, Gideon Beinstock, lived nearby, they sought him out. The Beinstocks took them under their wing and helped them produce a first small vintage in 2015, and Frenchtown Farms has been making wine ever since, named for the tiny Gold Rush village of Frenchtown.
The Region
The winery sits in the North Yuba AVA in the Sierra Foothills of California, a remote, high-elevation area with mineralized soils and steep topography, where they secured access to a large portion of the historic Renaissance Vineyards.
Vineyards and Farming
The Mockrishes farm organically, working without synthetic chemicals and using organic elemental sulfur at key moments in the growing season, with an emphasis on healthy soils and a balanced ecosystem. The hillside vineyards and their mineral soils give the wines a distinctive mountain character.
Winemaking
Winemaking is minimal-intervention. Grapes are hand-harvested, whole-cluster crushing is done by foot to press the fruit without crushing the bitter seeds, and fermentations run spontaneously on native yeasts. The wines are typically bottled unfiltered and unfined.
The Wines
Frenchtown Farms favors lesser-known and traditional grape varieties in an experimental spirit, including a white field blend bottled as Poisson Pilote and wines drawn from the old Renaissance Vineyard plantings.
