GLORIA FERRER'S WINEMAKER HAS WORKED HIS WAY TO THE TOP OF HIS PROFESSION

By Thom Elkjer

Sonoma Winery Gloria Ferrer produces some of the region's best sparkling wines, as well as an impressive number of still wines, including Pinot Noir and is a breath-taking spot for tasting. Thom Elkjer talks to Ferrer's Bob Iantosca learning the wine-making business—from the ground up.

Bob Iantosca’s first opportunity to make sparkling wine took him by surprise. “I had just started a new job at a winery in Sonoma,” he recalls, “and they told me that this tank of Pinot Noir in the winery was supposed to become sparkling wine, not still wine.”

Making sparkling wine in the traditional French fashion is a highly specialized process, and Iantosca succinctly sums up his knowledge at the time: “I was clueless.” He knew other sparkling winemakers, however, and with their help produced his first bottled bubbly.

That was in 1981. Fast-forward 24 years, and Iantosca is vice president and winemaker at Gloria Ferrer, the Spanish-owned winery in Carneros that produces well over 100,000 cases of sparkling wine annually. His quarter-century on the bubbly beat qualifies him as one California’s most experienced sparkling winemakers.

“It’s daunting if you don’t know how to make it,” he now says about sparkling wine, “but it’s really not that hard. You just have to be precise and meticulous about every step—and there are a lot of steps.”

Iantosca grew up on the east coast, where his Italian grandfather made wine at home. He found other wine enthusiasts while attending the University of Arizona, and spent spring break in 1972 driving up to northern California. “I got a really skewed vision of wine country, coming up from the desert,” he laughs. “Everything in California was green when I was visiting. I had no idea it would all go brown every summer.”

He found that out when he graduated and got a vineyard job in Sonoma, at Buena Vista in 1975. He gradually worked his way into winemaking, including stints at Dry Creek Vineyard and Dehlinger in Sonoma County and Stevenot in the Sierra Foothills. He came to Carneros and Gloria Ferrer as assistant winemaker in 1984 and took over the winemaking title in 1987.

Just three years later, Iantosca suggested to Pedro Ferrer Noguer, CEO of Gloria Ferrer’s parent company, Freixenet, that they consider making still wine. Sparkling wine traditionally contains high percentages of Chardonnay and Pinot Noir, so Gloria Ferrer already had plenty of fruit to work with.

Given a green light, Iantosca and vineyard manager Mike Crumly began experiments in the vineyard to identify which combinations of vine type and vineyard block could achieve the color, ripeness, and flavor concentration that distinguishes still wines from far more delicate sparklers. “They are totally different animals,” Iantosca declares. “Fortunately, we can put all our grapes into the kind of wine they belong in. In some ways, we can make even better sparkling wine because of our still wine programs.”

Having learned on the job his whole career, Iantosca says his secret weapon as a winemaker is hiring good people who he can teach in turn. “People who work here at Ferrer know what I expect,” he explains. “When something comes up and they respond the way I would respond, it’s a great feeling. It means the hard work will keep paying off, long into the future.”