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Vintner for Naples Winter Wine Festival - Meet the Kids Day
Carla Bruni-Sarkozy
Château d’Estoublon, Provence, France
Meet former French First Lady Carla Bruni-Sarkozy as she attends her first Naples Winter Wine Festival with the label she co-owns, Château d’Estoublon. Situated within the Alpilles Regional Natural Park, in Provence, the 18th-century estate has 22 rooms, where guests can sleep among the hundreds of acres of olive groves and some of the best vineyards in the region. In 2020, Bruni-Sarkozy and her cohorts purchased the 740-acre estate, opening the property to tourism and launching their flagship rosé, Roseblood d’Estoublon. Bruni-Sarkozy helped compose the new cuvée—a blend of grenache and cinsaut—as an elegant and distinctive bottling. The wine is sensual yet structured and a perfect reflection of the terroir.
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Clay Hires
Clay Mauritson
Mauritson Wines, Sonoma, California
Six generations of winemaking knowledge are embedded in the DNA of Dry Creek Valley native Clay Mauritson. His Swedish ancestors planted their first vines in 1884, in an area that now anchors Sonoma’s Rockpile AVA. The University of Oregon football player-turned-vintner worked at Kenwood Vineyards, Jordan Vineyard & Winery, Taft Street Winery and Dry Creek Vineyard, before producing his first wine under the Mauritson label in 1998. Working out of ‘Zinfandel Country,’ Mauritson and winemaker Emma Kudritzki Hall craft the largest production of full-bodied reds in the area. But, don’t sleep on the Russian River Valley pinot noir he developed with Michelin-starred Charlie Palmer. The vintner has a strong philanthropic heart, too. After his son Brady was diagnosed with Down syndrome in 2010, Mauritson helped found the Down Syndrome Association North Bay (DSANB) and launched an annual charity event, Project Zin, which has raised nearly $2 million for the cause since 2012.
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Craig Becker
Craig Becker
Somerston Estate, St. Helena, California
Somerston’s founder, Craig Becker, was born to make wine. He studied viticulture and oenology at UC Davis before training at Robert Mondavi Winery and working at Spring Mountain Vineyard, where he was promoted to winemaker at the age of 23. In 1999, he founded his consulting business, Becker Wines and Vineyard Management. As an amateur pilot, he flew throughout California sourcing fruit. In his travels, he discovered the future Somerston Estate site. Today, he oversees winemaking and vineyard operations at Somerston and Priest Ranch, which encompass nearly 1,700 acres. The size of the estate allows him to sell fruit to top Napa wineries and select the grapes best suited for his two labels: Bordeaux varieties for Somerston, and cabernet sauvignon, zinfandel and petite sirah for Priest Ranch. “The great wines of the world all have a sense of place,” Becker says. “It is the winemaker’s role to capture the estate’s potential in every bottle, without a heavy hand.”
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Paige Green
Elizabeth & Mark Hanson
Bricoleur Vineyards, Windsor, California
Bricoleur Vineyards co-founders Elizabeth and Mark Hanson are steeped in Sonoma County’s wine legacy. In the 1800s, Elizabeth’s great-grandfather, Pietro Carlo Rossi, was the original oenologist at Italian Swiss Colony—the largest California winery in the 1950s. In 2020, Mark and Elizabeth returned to the family roots, with the opening of Bricoleur Vineyards in the Russian River Valley. The winery was recently recognized by the Slow Food Sonoma County North Chapter for the estate’s sustainably farmed culinary gardens, which supply the onsite Charlie Palmer restaurant. Running the winery is a family affair, with daughter Sarah Hanson Citron, overseeing Bricoleur’s culinary, hospitality, tasting room and special events teams. Talk to the Hansons about their award-winning pinot noirs and chardonnays and how their dessert wines hold up to Elizabeth’s grandfather’s sweet sippers, which were notably mentioned during the Pink Ladies pajama party in the movie Grease.