Ramey Wine Cellars

David and Carla Ramey founded Ramey Wine Cellars in 1996. David was then vice president at Dominus Estate, Christian Moueix's Napa Valley winery, which made only red wines, and Moueix gave him permission to make a white wine on his own. He persuaded Larry Hyde to sell him grapes from the oldest block of his vineyard and made 260 cases of 1996 Chardonnay, the first Ramey wine. Carla Ramey took on the administrative and financial side of the business. Production grew when David went to work for Leslie Rudd, turning Napa's Girard Winery into Rudd Estate: Rudd did not want the grapes from two blocks of old Wente clone Chardonnay, so Ramey took them on, and the Rameys' production quintupled. He left Rudd Estate in 2002 to work full-time on his own wines. By 2003 the winery was bottling 15,000 cases, and by 2019 annual production was 35,000 cases, from a leased industrial space in Healdsburg it had used since 2003. In 2012 the family bought Westside Farms in the Russian River Valley, its first estate vineyard. Claire and Alan Ramey began working at the winery in 2013 and became co-presidents in 2021, and as of 2021 they had assumed ownership of the winery and the Westside Farms estate.

• 1996: first vintage, 260 cases of Hyde Vineyard Chardonnay
• 2002: David Ramey leaves Rudd Estate to focus on Ramey Wine Cellars
• 2012: purchase of Westside Farms, the first estate vineyard
• 2021: Claire and Alan Ramey become co-presidents and take ownership

Claire Ramey and Alan Ramey are co-presidents and co-owners. Claire leads viticultural operations, with responsibility for the Westside Farms estate vineyard and the viticultural directives for the winery's grower partners. Alan works across winemaking and the business; he is the author of Pressing Matters: The Debates, Controversies and Mysteries that Have Shaped the World of Wine, worked harvests at Domaine Méo-Camuzet in Burgundy and Veramonte in Chile, and serves on the Board of the California Wine Institute. David Ramey is the founder. Carla Ramey co-founded the winery, managed its business operations and served as CFO. Cameron Frey, the winery's first employee, joined in 2002 and is President of Winemaking; he graduated from CSU Fresno with a B.S. in Enology and Chemistry in 1991 and worked at Robert Mondavi Winery, Gallo of Sonoma and Casa Girelli Winery in Puglia before joining. Lydia Cummins, VP of Winemaking, completed a degree in Viticulture and Enology at UC Davis in 2005, worked at Williams Selyem and Kosta Browne, and joined in 2008 as Enologist before promotion to Associate Winemaker.

• Claire Ramey: co-president and co-owner; leads viticulture, including Westside Farms
• Alan Ramey: co-president and co-owner; author of Pressing Matters
• Cameron Frey: President of Winemaking; first employee, joined 2002
• Lydia Cummins: VP of Winemaking; joined 2008

David Ramey earned a BA in American Studies at UC Santa Cruz and an MS in Enology at UC Davis in 1979, with a thesis on volatile ester hydrolysis. He wrote to a dozen Bordeaux châteaux, and only Christian Moueix replied positively; Ramey started as a cellar rat in Pomerol, working a harvest at Château Pétrus, where Jean-Claude Berrouet, then winemaker at Pétrus, became a key mentor. 'He taught me to make red wine and to let nature do the work,' Ramey has said of Berrouet. After an internship at Lindeman's Winery in Australia in 1980, he began at Simi that year as assistant winemaker under Zelma Long; over five years together they pursued whole-cluster pressing, lees contact and cooler fermentations for Chardonnay, work that led to a 1986 academic paper on skin contact and fermentation temperatures. He then led Matanzas Creek for five years and oversaw the cellar at Chalk Hill for six. In 1989 he worked a second stint with Moueix in Bordeaux, and he and Carla married there while working harvest at Château Pétrus. In 1996 Moueix hired him as vice president to run Dominus Estate in Yountville and oversee the building of its Herzog & de Meuron-designed winery. From 1998 to 2002 he was director of vineyards and winemaking at Rudd Estate. He has also consulted for cellars including Lancaster, Rodney Strong, Hall and Snowden.

• Education: BA in American Studies, UC Santa Cruz; MS in Enology, UC Davis (1979)
• Bordeaux: cellar work for the Moueix family, including Château Pétrus, and a second stint in 1989
• California: Simi (from 1980), Matanzas Creek, Chalk Hill, Dominus Estate (from 1996) and Rudd Estate (1998 to 2002)

Westside Farms, the family's estate, is a 75-acre property on Westside Road in the Russian River Valley that has been in use as farmland since the middle 1800s; its vines run along the banks of the Russian River. Its Pinot Noir vines share the silty Yolo loam soils of Rochioli Vineyard a mile north. Hyde Vineyard in the Carneros district of Napa Valley supplied the 1996 debut wine and is Ramey's only Chardonnay source outside Sonoma. Woolsey Road Vineyard in the Russian River Valley is owned by the Martinelli family, who planted it to Ramey's specifications in 2007 using the Wente clone. The Rochioli Vineyard Chardonnay, from Yolo loam soils, was first made in 2015, and the Ritchie Vineyard Chardonnay has been bottled from 2002. Hudson Vineyard in Carneros was an early Chardonnay source, bottled from 1997 to 2011. For Cabernet Sauvignon, Pedregal Vineyard was forged in the rock outcropping of the eastern Oakville hillside, and Cooley Ranch is a mountain site above Rockpile in Sonoma County, overlooking Lake Sonoma.

• Westside Farms (estate): Russian River Valley, 75 acres, bought in 2012
• Hyde Vineyard: Carneros, Napa Valley; Chardonnay since 1996
• Woolsey Road Vineyard: Russian River Valley; planted by the Martinelli family to Ramey's specifications in 2007
• Pedregal Vineyard (Oakville) and Cooley Ranch (Sonoma County) for Cabernet Sauvignon

The Chardonnay range has two appellation wines, Russian River Valley and Sonoma Coast, and single-vineyard bottlings from Hyde, Ritchie, Rochioli, Westside Farms and Woolsey Road Vineyards, each with a 2023 vintage among the winery's tech sheets. The current red releases are the Westside Farms Estate Pinot Noir; a Claret, a Cabernet Sauvignon-based blend; Cooley Ranch Cabernet Sauvignon, 100% Cabernet Sauvignon; Annum, a Cabernet-based blend of the vintage's best Bordeaux lots, named for the Latin word for year; Pedregal Vineyard Cabernet Sauvignon from Oakville, whose name means rocky place in Spanish; and a Sonoma Coast Syrah. Earlier wines in the winery's library include a Carneros Chardonnay (2001 to 2008), Platt Vineyard Chardonnay (2009 to 2014), Larkmead Cabernet Sauvignon (2004 to 2007), Jericho Canyon Cabernet Sauvignon (2001 to 2005) and Rodgers Creek and Cole Creek Syrahs. In 2014 the family started a second label, Sidebar Cellars, for varieties such as rosé, Sauvignon Blanc and Kerner.

• Appellation Chardonnays: Russian River Valley, Sonoma Coast
• Single-vineyard Chardonnays: Hyde, Ritchie, Rochioli, Westside Farms, Woolsey Road
• Reds: Westside Farms Estate Pinot Noir, Claret, Cooley Ranch, Annum, Pedregal Vineyard, Sonoma Coast Syrah
• Sidebar Cellars: second label started in 2014

As of 2019, the two appellation and five single-vineyard Chardonnays were made in a similar way: whole-cluster pressing, native yeast fermentation in barrels, sur-lie ageing with bâtonnage, a light fining and no filtration. David Ramey calls his ideal, sun-kissed California fruit married to Burgundian-style minerality, 'neoclassical Burgundy'. On the winery's milestones page he puts texture first: 'I care about what the wine feels like on the palate above all else'. New oak for the single-vineyard Chardonnays fell from two-thirds in the early years to about 25 percent by 2019, and grapes were being harvested earlier for more vibrant fruit flavors. Ramey considers the wines best enjoyed five to 10 years after the vintage. Sonoma County Vintners credits him with pioneering whole-cluster pressing of white grapes, the use of oxidized juice in making white wine, sur lie aging of white wines in barrel, malolactic fermentation of Chardonnay, native yeast fermentations and bottling without filtration.

• Chardonnay method (as of 2019): whole-cluster pressing, native yeast barrel fermentation, sur-lie ageing with bâtonnage, light fining, no filtration
• About 25 percent new oak for single-vineyard Chardonnays by 2019, down from two-thirds
• Wines are fined but not filtered

In January 2022, Sonoma County Vintners announced David Ramey as the first recipient of its Lifetime Achievement Award, for presentation at the Sonoma County Barrel Auction at MacMurray Estate Vineyards on May 6, 2022. Wine Spectator's 2019 Top 100 profile, by Kim Marcus, called him 'the Professor of California Chardonnay'. The magazine rated the Ramey Hyde Vineyard Chardonnay 2016 at 95 points and named it No. 7 in its Top 100 wines of 2019.

• Sonoma County Vintners Lifetime Achievement Award: first recipient, announced January 25, 2022
• Wine Spectator Top 100 of 2019: Hyde Vineyard Chardonnay 2016 at No. 7 (95 points)

The winery is at 25 Healdsburg Avenue in Healdsburg, near downtown by Memorial Bridge. Tastings are private and seated, by appointment at 10am and 2pm, in an upstairs parlor overlooking the cellar. A standard tasting is typically 90 minutes, includes six wines and costs $50 per person; tastings are complimentary for wine club members.

• By appointment at 10am and 2pm; $50 per person
• About 90 minutes, six wines

Primary sources (producer's own site): https://www.rameywine.com/, https://www.rameywine.com/story/, https://www.rameywine.com/milestones/, https://www.rameywine.com/wine/, https://www.rameywine.com/visit/, https://www.rameywine.com/research/, https://rameywine.com/library/, https://rameywine.com/trade-media/. Official source: Sonoma County Vintners, https://sonomawine.com/david-ramey-to-receive-lifetime-achievement-award-from-sonoma-county-vintners-at-eighth-annual-sonoma-county-barrel-auction/ (25 January 2022). Secondary sources: Wine Spectator (Kim Marcus, Top 100 of 2019, profile and No. 7 wine page), The Press Democrat (Sarah Doyle, December 2022) and Decanter (Elin McCoy, last updated 11 August 2019). Last verified 2026-10-18. Where the producer's site and a secondary source disagree, the producer's site governs.