Welcome to Peter Cellars, we are a boutique family winery producing high quality wines, that combine the unique terroir and fruit characteristics of our Sonoma estate with our old world french wine making technniques. Whether you would like to learn about our wines, purchase our wines, find our wines, meet the people of Peter Cellars or arrange a tasting appointment at our Sonoma estate, you have come to the right place.
Welcome To Peter Cellars
Our History
Peter Cellars was started by Peter Mauel in 2003 based on a commitment to produce high quality wines that combine the unique terroir and fruit characteristics of northern California with old world French wine making techniques. Having grown up in the United kingdom and spending extensive time at wine houses in both the Burgundy and Bordeaux regions of France. Peter begun to develop an understanding of the many different techniques and styles both in the vineyard and the cellar and the impact they would have on the style of the finished wines. From these experiences Peter started to develop a clear winemaking philosophy and style. Peter moved to California in the early nineties to complete an MBA and career in the software Industry. At the beginning of the Millenium, Peter decided that his calling and passion was to handcraft premium wines. Peter then completed his formal oenology education at UC Davis. Peter started to scour the Sonoma Coast, Carneros. Sonoma Valley and Napa Valley appellations for vineyard fruit sources and a location to make wine. The first vintage wine was 2003. In 2010 he acquired the Carneros Estate Vineyard in Sonoma and started the build out of the Estate winery where all our wines are made, and tastings performed. For the love of wine!
Wine Dogs
Meet Harry and Meghan, our vicious winery dogs. They were whelped on the 1st September 2019. They can always be found hanging around our estate tasting room. A dog’s nose is anywhere from 100 to 10 million times more sensitive than a humans, anything strange going on with the wine and they will know. They are our main source of manure. Their unique methods of exploring the vineyards and marking the rows they think are the best for harvest have been a great help but have never made it into the final selections. Their front right paws has also been a huge help for our graphic designers for our logo. Anyway I can’t think of anything better than to have a glass of Peter Cellars’ wine in front of the fire with Harry and Meghan. For all you Dog lovers out there, Cheers
Winemaking Philosophy
Our philosophy to wine making is as follows:
We look for fruit that comes from exceptional vineyards so we can make exceptional wines. Our fruit comes from vineyards that are typically gentle slopping and west facing, these types of vineyards will produce high quality fruit which leads to concentrated wines bursting with flavors. 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. Towards Harvest time we will be in the vineyards two to three times a day assessing this. When I feel they are right we will pick early in
The morning, and are focused on getting our fruit to the crush as quickly as possible. We hand sort our grapes to eliminate leaves and unripe clusters. Our grapes are 100% de-stemmed and then crushed.
We will typically cold soak our grapes, the length of time depending on the varietal, normally longer for Pinot Noir.
We ferment our wines in one ton open top bins, we will often times break down clone selections into separate lots and sometimes combine them, based on what we see in the vineyard. Our dedication is to classic French small lot winemaking techniques, each bin is hand punched down three to four times a day in order to obtain maximum exposure of skins to juice.
We ferment our wines in one ton open top bins, we will often times break down clone selections into separate lots and sometimes combine them, based on what we see in the vineyard. Our dedication is to classic French small lot winemaking techniques, each bin is hand punched down three to four times a day in order to obtain maximum exposure of skins to juice.
We perform extended macerations on our wines based on our assessment of the lots, with our 03 cabernet we extended the maceration 15 days after dryness which has greatly added to complexity and finesse of this wine.
The wine is then aged, the length of time dependent on the varietals typically the longest is the Cabernet followed by the Syrah and lastly the Pinot. Exclusively French oak is used, because of its origin and texture these barrels do not require the same toasting as other types of oak. These barrels have a long, soft, deep toasting allowing a true respect of the fruit and wine characteristics. This is in sharp contrast to the heavy, brutal toasting often found in wines with a pronounced “oaky” taste. The exact length depends of how the wines are evolving. We use different cooperages throughout the barrel program for our wines (30 to 50% new oak each year dependent on varietals), each adding a certain component to the wines. Cooperages in our current program include Cadus, Francois Freres, Dargaud & Jaegle, Damy and Mercurey. Most of these come from the Nevers, Allier and Vosges and we typically like medium toast plus.
Our winemaking procedures are both time consuming and detail oriented, but we feel they help us obtain our goals of producing wines that have immense concentration and complexity.