The Best of All Things Sparkling™

At Rack & Riddle Custom Wine Services, we’re passionate about personalized service and work with clients of all sizes — small boutique wineries to major corporations. No matter the size of your business, you will feel comfortable with our process, taken care of, and ultimately end up with a wine you can be proud to have your label on.

Leading Edge
Winemaking Practices

We’re dedicated to sustainable farming practices, allowing nature to bring out the unique attributes of every wine grape that passes through our facilities. We are California Certified Organic by CCOF, for clients wishing to produce organic wines.

We ensure the true nature of the wine is distinctive, the care and quality shines through, and that you’ll be proud to share, sell, and savor the wines crafted with our care, passion and expertise. The wines we produce for clients are competitive — often winning the highest of honors at professionally judged tastings.

Learn more about California Certified Organic Farmers (CCOF).

Our Story
From the Beginning

Rebecca Faust and Bruce Lundquist, founders and managing partners of Rack & Riddle.

In 2007, Wine industry veterans Rebecca Faust and Bruce Lundquist set out to establish Rack & Riddle Custom Wine Services. They envisioned a leading-edge facility using premium vineyards to produce wine in the heart of the Northern California Wine Country.

During their planning, they quickly realized a unique calling for Rack & Riddle — to craft the finest California sparkling wines in the French Méthode Champenoise tradition for industry clientele, as well as for their own Rack & Riddle sparkling wine label.

Faust and Lundquist harnessed their combined expertise of over 40 years in the industry to create a space for Rack & Riddle in a very niche marketplace.

They carefully selected six gifted winemakers. This included the sought-after skills of Penny Gadd-Coster. Penny, a winemaker and master of the Méthode Champenoise process, was a huge win for the team.

Méthode Champenoise is the traditional French method of making sparkling wines, where the bubbly undergoes secondary fermentation in the bottle. It results in the highest caliber of sparkling wines. It requires an incredible amount of labor, time, and equipment. Most wineries won’t even attempt it.

Rebecca and Bruce had a vision, and knew that putting the extra care, labor, and expense into their process would result in superior sparkling wines. They knew it would set them apart.

Rack & Riddle's original location in Hopland, California.

Hopland, CA facility, Rack & Riddle’s home 2007 —2014

Our first team at Rack & Riddle at the Hopland, California facility.

The early Rack & Riddle team. Rebecca Faust and Bruce Lundquist — foreground.

Sparkling Wine production line in action at our Healdsburg location.

Sparkling wine being foiled at the Healdsburg facility.

Expansion to Sonoma County, California

After a bountiful first six years in business, Rack & Riddle made a strategic move in 2014 to relocate its facilities from its original 125,000 square foot facility in Hopland, to Sonoma County — the hub of the Northern California winemaking region. It was a huge milestone in the evolution of the company.

Rack & Riddle now has three centrally-located Sonoma County, CA facilities in both Healdsburg and Alexander Valley (Geyserville), California. The new state-of-the-art facilities have increased winemaking space, automated bottling capabilities, plus have ample stainless steel tank and tirage storage capacities.

Today, Rack & Riddle’s team has grown to more than 75 employees, including: On-site lab team, an award-winning winemaking team, and exceptional business development, production and cellar staff.

“Healdsburg” Bottling Location

Healdsburg is a notable vineyard and winemaking region of Sonoma County, lauded as producing some of the finest California wines.

The strategic expansion also provides clients with the ability to say “Healdsburg” as the bottling location designated on their labels—a huge benefit for all.

Front of the Rack & Riddle's facility in Healdsburg, California.

Rack & Riddle, Healdsburg, CA

Rack & Riddle's Four-Pack of sparkling wines.

Why We Craft
Méthode Champenoise

The art of making sparkling wine can be achieved by a variety of different methods. However, if you are as dedicated as we are about creating premium sparkling wines from only the best grape sources (as Faust and Lundquist learned from their history at Piper Sonoma and J Vineyards, respectively), then the only way to make sparkling wine is by true Méthode Champenoise.

Across the winemaking industry, only a handful of wineries specialize in this old-world technique. In the nation — particularly amongst the prime winemaking regions of California — Rack & Riddle nearly stands alone in the Méthode Champenoise playing field.

 

LIKE “DRINKING THE STARS”

The roots of this method are fascinating. Engineered in the early 1600’s by Dominican monks in the Champagne region of France, monk Dom Perignon is said to have mused about the champagne bubbles, “I am drinking the stars.”

Creating those effervescent “stars” is a labor of love involving two fermentations and a process of “riddling” to remove the lees from the bottle.

In fact, the Rack & Riddle name and our logo are inspired by the process. “Racking” alludes to the process of removing sediment from still wine, and “Riddling” is the counterpart process for sparkling wine. The Rack & Riddle brand logo reflects an historic French riddling rack.

Rack & Riddle logo art - white

The Best of All Things Sparkling™

LET'S COLLABORATE

Learn more about how we can assist you with sparkling or still wine production. We're here to help.