Schramsberg was founded by Jacob Schram on the mountainside of Napa Valley about 150 years ago. In 1965, the Davies couple became owners and established the company as a producer of sparkling wines made using the Champagne method. They started out with a Blanc de Blancs made from Chardonnay, and have continued to produce high-quality sparkling wines that represent America, which have been used many times at official dinners for successive American presidents. In 1965, Jack and Jamie Davies, parents of current president Hugh Davies, purchased Schramsberg. Schramsberg had been abandoned for many years, but Jack and Jamie Davies decided to use the land to make sparkling wine that America could be proud of. At the time, there were only 21 wineries in California, and the total area cultivated with Chardonnay and Pinot Noir was about 20 hectares. Sparkling wines from outside of France were merely "drinks with bubbles" and were treated as less than wine, and everyone thought that making high-quality sparkling wine was reckless. But Jack and Jamie didn't give up. They said they would make a domestic Champagne-style sparkling wine full of complexity and luxury. They replanted grapes in fields that had been poorly managed for decades, paid close attention to grape cultivation, and reviewed all the brewing processes, adjusting the aging period of the wine through trial and error to create the best taste. And above all, they traveled around the country to spread the name of "Schramsberg", the story that the two of them believed in. The 1965 Blanc de Blancs was the first commercial sparkling wine to use Chardonnay. The 1967 Blanc de Noirs was made mainly from Pinot Noir and became famous as a traditional Champagne-style sparkling wine. The Reserve, which was released next, established its position as a high-class sparkling wine aged for more than 48 months, and the Cremant Demi-Sec, released in 1973, is made from Flora grapes, a cross between Semillon and Gewürztraminer, and has been used many times at official dinners for American presidents. In 1972, President Nixon made a surprise visit to Beijing and met with Premier Zhou Enlai, where he was served a 1969 Schramsberg Blanc de Blancs. Then, J. Schram, made from grapes harvested in 1987, was released in 1992, and released a wine that rivaled the Tête de Cuvée of the world's top champagne houses. As a result of Jack and Jamie's tireless efforts, Schramsberg became a world-famous sparkling house. American wine critic Nathan Chroman said: "You can talk about sparkling wine from an average producer in a line. A major French company starting to make sparkling wine in California could be talked about in a paragraph. But the impact that Jacques and Jamie have had on California could take up more than a chapter." All the grapes are harvested by hand, and the wine is also made by hand. All the wine is aged in caves on the winery's grounds, and most of the remiage is done by hand by employees. The labels of the flagship wine, Jay Schram, are applied by hand. Schramsberg stocks, ages, and releases 2.7 million bottles of wine.
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