Sarah Francis Wines
Beverage ManufacturingCalifornia, United States2-10 Employees
Sarah Francis Wines is a small producer based in Saint Helena in California's Napa Valley, founded in 2010 by winemaker and vigneron Sarah Francis. The operation concentrates on single vineyard designate wines, emphasizing terroir expression through very low yields and strict farming practices, including limiting to one to two clusters per cane and daily vineyard monitoring. It holds long-term leases on premier Cabernet and Chardonnay sites, notably Beckstoffer Georges III in Rutherford, Beckstoffer Carneros Lake in Carneros, and a rare Oakville vineyard known as The LEO. Production is deliberately limited, with only a few barrels produced from each designated vineyard, and the winemaking process is highly hands-on, featuring hand harvest, hand sorting, berry-by-berry de-stemming, and barrel fermentation in caves using new French oak. After fermentation, the wine is aged in new French oak for about three years before bottling, and the wines have earned critical acclaim, including a perfect score for the 2013 Cabernet vintage and 98 points for the 2014 vintage.