Ladera Winery

About Winery and Wines

The Ladera story has many facets; each very important to us and our heritage. We focus on our wines but you can’t talk about wine without knowing about the winemaking and there would be no winemaking without a winery. Our 1886 stone winery is our history and its foundation supports the balance of our efforts. The thirty-inch-thick stone walls of the Brun & Chaix Winery were built under the direction of Italian stonemason Frank Giugni by Chinese workers who had originally been brought to California to cut the right-of-way for the railways through the solid granite of the Sierra Nevada Mountains. The stone used in the winery came from a quarry near Angwin Creek on Howell Mountain. Since each floor had its own ground level entrance, grapes could be brought by wagon to the top level for crushing, allowed to flow by gravity to the middle level for fermenting, then to the bottom floor for barrel storage. They saved not only the costs of pumps, they saved their wine from the damage pumping can cause. When crushed fruit is pumped, grapes and stems can be broken and undesirable tannins released into the juice and resulting wine. After fermentation, gravity-flow introduces less air and is more effective at separating the solids from the clear wine.