When French winemaker Gilles Martin moved to New York in 1997 to support his wife, a linguistics professor at Rutgers University, he wasn’t sure exactly what he was going to do.
His specialty was in making sparkling wines — he came from prestigious vineyards like the Roederer Estate in Mendocino, Calif., and Delas Frères in France’s Rhône Valley — and New York wineries simply weren’t focused on fizzy brews. “There were a couple of people making sparkling wine at the time, but on a very, very small scale,” he tells Alexa.
Fast forward to today. Martin is the founding and head winemaker of Sparkling Pointe, a winery in Southold (on the North Fork of Long Island), which is celebrating its 20th anniversary this year.
Unlike other wineries that diversify its offerings, Sparkling Pointe focuses exclusively on the bubbly. As its tagline puts it, “If it’s not Sparkling, what’s the Pointe?”
The winery makes bubbly wine varietals under its own brand name (from $30), winning prestigious awards. The Topaz Impérial rosé and Reserve blanc de blancs, for example, have taken home medals at The Champagne & Sparkling Wine World Championships, beating competitors from around the world, including France.
And it also helps dozens of wineries, both on the North Fork and in upstate New York, make their own sparkling wines. “We act as a custom crush facility,” explains Michael Falcetta, the winery’s general manager. “The way we make it uses very specialized equipment, and we have that, so we assist the other wineries.”
Indeed, Martin has long insisted that the label’s wines be made using the méthode Champenoise, during which the wine goes through a second fermentation inside the bottle. “The result is that the wine ages in contact with the yeast for one to eight years, and during that time it gains an aromatic profile like a brioche — toasted and doughy,” he says.
Getting those results requires a complex process by which yeast and sugar is added to the wine to increase pressure and produce carbon dioxide, forming the bubbles. After months, sometimes years, the bottles are riddled, meaning they are rotated slowly to trap extra sediment into the neck of the bottle.
Then, through disgorgement, pressure pushes out the sediment. After that, a liqueur de dosage, a mixture of wine and sugar, is added, and the cork and wine hood are popped on. The process takes expensive and rare equipment, Martin notes. “Our neighbors are not equipped to do that.”
Over the years, he’s found making sparkling wine in the United States has its perks. “In the US, we don’t have the same regulations they have in Europe,” he says. “For example, in Champagne, [France], you can only use approved grape varieties. Here on Long Island, I can use whatever I want: merlot, muscat.” Martin even makes a sparkling red — something that does not happen frequently in Champagne.
Another advantage of creating fizzy brews on Long Island? You can pick the grapes earlier than other varieties. “We usually kick off harvest in the very, very, very beginning of September,” he explains.
“The way the climate has changed over the years is that in the fall, you run into the storm and hurricane season. We are lucky that in most cases we’ve already had our grapes picked and pressed before the difficult weather comes along.”
Then there’s the fact that while general US wine consumption has decreased, the demand for sparkling wine has increased — especially in the Hamptons.
This summer, those looking to pop some local bubbly can stop by Sparkling Pointe’s tasting room, where wines are matched with caviar, cheese from a dairy farm up the road and even local potato chips. “It’s a classic pairing,” he notes of serving sparklers with snacks. The winery will also offer oyster tasting events and lobster roll pairings in the coming months, as well as a salon series with themed dinners in the city and the Hamptons.
The goal, says Falcetta, is to show people that sparkling wine is something they can drink all the time: “I think we are helping to break the notion that it is only for celebration.”
But it’s always a great choice for a 20th anniversary.
