From Journalist to Winemaker: Courtney Humiston’s Journey to California Sparkling Wine

Summary

In this inspiring episode, Courtney Humiston uncorks her unconventional path from journalist to sommelier to sparkling winemaker. She shares how her love for storytelling and sense of place led her to craft Delphinium—a California Crémant that’s as elegant as it is expressive of the Golden State’s terroir. Courtney dives into the mentorships that shaped her, her food pairing philosophy, and why sparkling wine deserves a permanent spot at the table. Tune in for a bubbly chat about reinvention, resilience, and the bright future of California fizz. 

Takeaways
– Courtney’s wine journey began in St. Helena, Napa Valley, where curiosity trumped convention.
– She champions learning from wine, not judging it—letting the glass be your teacher.
– Her sommelier days sparked a deep love for Champagne, but she’s carving out a California identity.
– Inspired by Crémant de Loire, Courtney created Delphinium: a California Crémant with its own voice.
– Crafted with Sauvignon Blanc and Chardonnay, Delphinium is rooted in organic farming and native fermentation.
– For Courtney, storytelling is as essential as terroir in every bottle.
– She’s an advocate for more producers diving into quality sparkling wine.
– The future of California bubbles? Collaborative, creative, and uniquely homegrown. 

Wine Tasted

2023 Delphinium California Crémant 

Find out more about Courtney's wine journey and her sparkling wine HERE

Join Laurie on July 31st at 6PM in Easton, MD for La Dolce Vita" Sip & Savor the Tastes of Italy. Get Details & Tickets CLICK HERE

Transcript

Laurie Forster (00:00.984)
Courtney, welcome to The Sipping Point.

Courtney Humiston (00:04.206)
Hi, thank you so much for having me. I'm happy to be here.

Laurie Forster (00:07.04)
I know. So I love to always kind of orient people. Tell us where in the world you are. I've already introduced you. And also then maybe kind of give us the idea of how did you get into the wine business? I love to hear people's journeys to wine. And I know the listeners will too.

Courtney Humiston (00:26.126)
Yeah, absolutely. It has been quite a journey and where in the world am I has been a good question lately because I've been traveling a lot lately. But at this exact moment, I'm in St. Helena, which is a really lovely town at the north end of Napa Valley, about an hour and a half north of the Bay Bridge in San Francisco, which funnily enough, and maybe everything kind of comes full circle for a reason, this is where my wine journey started. So I was living in New York City.

in my 20s as a reporter and my dream was to move to New York City and become a writer as a young girl living in the Midwest. And so in some ways I did do that. So I moved to New York City in my 20s and did some writing there and just fell in love with wine, right? So it tends to kind of captivate those people who are just naturally very curious. And that was definitely me, especially like working as a journalist and trying to understand things.

And so I moved out to St. Helena to attend the Culinary Institute of America that has a campus just right north of St. Helena here, stone's throw from where I am right now. so I studied there for about a year and I worked with some really great mentors and we studied everything from wine tasting to viticulture to winemaking to the business side of the wine industry as well. So it was a really great immersion in terms of kind of starting.

almost sort of starting a new career at like 30 years old. It was just a really great kind of like kickstart. Met a lot of interesting people, got a lot of really, really good advice. But something that I still think about every single day in my wine career is one of the teachers there, Christy Dufault. You know, her approach was you never put yourself onto the wine. You never say like, this is good or this is bad. You're always trying to learn from it. And like, what can this wine teach me about where it comes from, who made it?

you know, how the vines are tended and grow and the history and the culture of that place. So that's been a very much of a guiding principle for me throughout my whole career, which to continue the journey, took me into San Francisco as a sommelier. I worked with a very famous French chef there called Dominique Crenn. So she had three Michelin stars with her first restaurant. And then I helped to open her second restaurant, which was called Petite Crenn, which was a really exciting adventure.

Laurie Forster (02:33.111)
Mmm.

Courtney Humiston (02:42.669)
intense, intense for sure. Yeah. Um, but that's where I fell in love with champagne. So it was, uh, it was a French, uh, seafood, um, restaurant. We didn't serve any meat. So it was all, it was a lot of oysters and, you know, working for such a renowned chef, I had access to a lot of really special grower champagnes. And so that kind of started me on this journey of just being really interested in trying to understand, um, champagne and sparkling wine.

Laurie Forster (02:42.827)
Wow. I bet.

Laurie Forster (02:54.327)
Mmm.

Laurie Forster (03:11.713)
That's great. I'm a huge Bubbles fan as well. you know, I'm excited to talk about your wine company that you started and taste your sparkling wine that I know we're calling California Cremant, I think is sort of the idea that you're putting forth. But how did you go from, you know, working in this prestigious restaurant, tasting the greatest champagnes of the world, right?

And what sparked the idea that you wanted to make something in California? I don't know if I would say that would rival, but that would be its own expression. just as champagne is an expression of, that French region.

Courtney Humiston (03:54.518)
Yeah, correct. That was really important to me because I think what I loved about champagne was that sense of terroir and how it expresses a place, even though there's a lot of winemaking that happens, right? Like you ferment the grapes and then you bottle them and then you ferment them again. So you're kind of making a wine twice. But the fact, the idea that it could still transmit, you know, the voice of the soil and the culture was just so like, just so fascinating to me. And what I saw in California, and I love

all people who are making sparkling wine and I want more people to do it. But what I saw was kind of because the sparkling wine industry in California was sort of pioneered by big champagne companies, know, so Domaine Carneros, Domaine Chandon, Roederer you know, so that was that kind of set the standard for sparkling wine in California. And so smaller producers, whether it be

Laurie Forster (04:26.219)
Yes.

Courtney Humiston (04:49.355)
not smaller, now larger producers like Scharmsburg and Iron Horse, and then smaller producers now like Ultramarine or Poe wines. I mean, there's so many amazing champagne style sparkling wines in California, but I think what I was interested in was finding a different way to tell the story of California instead of through the lens of champagne. So I actually looked more towards the guidelines of Cremant de Loire.

because there's such a vast style of sparkling wines in France that isn't champagne, that is often kind of like fresher and more affordable as well. So I was kind of more interested in telling that story versus trying to make like a wine that rivaled champagne. And so when you kind of step out of that champagne parameters, you know, a lot of things open up to you in terms of aging, grape varieties to work with.

Laurie Forster (05:20.033)
Mm-hmm.

Courtney Humiston (05:42.284)
And so that was the wine that I was always kind of interested in making. And so how I kind of learned to talk about it was by calling it California Cremant, because it is a method champenoise, it's two full fermentations, but I'm not trying to make a champagne style wine, if that makes sense.

Laurie Forster (05:58.712)
totally makes sense. And yes, that's what the cremants, at least, you know, the French cremants until now have always been sort of a little secret or a tip that I give people if they love champagne, sparkling wine, but they're looking for something French and a little less expensive cremants from Loire, Burgundy, Bordeaux. I mean, you know, all over France, they're making different sparkling wines. And yes, the grapes are different, right?

Courtney Humiston (06:09.313)
Mm-hmm.

Laurie Forster (06:27.073)
but they do have rules, you know, as far as aging and different things. But how do you see this? Do you see, are you the first one to be making a California Cremant? And did you trademark that yet?

Courtney Humiston (06:29.869)
Mm-hmm.

Courtney Humiston (06:42.381)
Great questions. No, I don't think I'm the first to do anything. There's a lot of really small producers doing sparkling wine. There's Carbonist wines, they call themselves American sparkling wine or something. And they're making some really wonderful wines that are everything between full on Pet Nat to more of what I'm doing, which is disgorged but still really fresh. There's a winemaker called Hammerly that's making really wonderful wines and works with some Sauvignon Blanc.

So I'm not like the first, I didn't invent this. I think I'm just kind of the first to of like give it a name and try to find a way to talk about it. And so that's a little bit of like the Sommelier and the journalist in me. That's like the storytelling, right? And trying to present it to people as a way that kind of makes sense. And I think a point I want to make about you recommending, you know, the Cremants of France as a more affordable and accessible alternative to champagne is that yes, they are, but it's also a different flavor profile, right? Like I want to drink bubbles every day, but I don't always want to drink

Laurie Forster (07:15.5)
Mm-hmm.

Laurie Forster (07:20.663)
Mm-hmm.

Laurie Forster (07:35.862)
Mm-hmm.

Courtney Humiston (07:38.645)
Champagne I don't always need that richness or that chalkiness that you're getting from the blonde debonks or that you know red fruit that you're getting from the the Blanc de Noirs or you know the powerful roses like sometimes you just want something different and So I think that's like an important way to talk about it is it's not you know It's not necessarily a lesser than I think I think what it is It's just getting away from comparing it to champagne and just letting it kind of be its own thing And so that's where I really want to like

Laurie Forster (07:51.413)
Yes.

Courtney Humiston (08:04.966)
know, rally with my allies in the wine industry that are doing that. It's not a less than, it's just its own. It's just its own thing, you know, and it's not even a competition. I think the more people are drinking bubbles, you know, they're going to drink, you know, Delphinium one night and then they're, you know, going to drink, Grower champagne the other night. And that's wonderful.

Laurie Forster (08:11.051)
Great.

Laurie Forster (08:22.443)
Well, tell me about Duffinian. How did you get started? Because to start a new wine brand has to be overwhelming. And I'm sure there's many steps. But what was the thing that really pushed you forward in starting this? And then I definitely want you to walk me through the wine and let's taste it together.

Courtney Humiston (08:34.496)
Yes.

Courtney Humiston (08:47.18)
Cool, I'm gonna answer your question in two ways. I'm gonna answer it one way with kind of like the spiritual way that led me to making this wine and then also the logistics. Because I think a lot of your listeners would be really interested in how does a person who's kind of been working in restaurants and like how do you do that, right? There's no like straight path to how to start a wine brand. So for me, like on the more like kind of like spiritual side of it, it was the pandemic and I was living out, I moved from San Francisco up to a little town on the Sonoma Coast called Jenner.

If anyone's familiar with it, it's at the mouth of the Russian River. So it's where the Russian River opens into the ocean. And so it's an amazing habitat and sanctuary for a lot of wildlife. The Russian River is one of the most influential geological formations in terms of the Sonoma County wine scene, in terms of the soils and the atmosphere there. And so this is where I lived for a year.

Well, I lived there for seven years actually, but my first full year was during the pandemic. And so we were just sort of like isolated out there. And I'm living in this natural environment and I'm, you know, sitting on my porch and you can kind of see the ocean and it's about like probably 300 feet above it. And, you know, all of these like blossoms are blooming, all of the spring, the spring blooms and then that salty air is kind of blowing in, you know, in the afternoon.

And I'm sitting out there shucking oysters from Hog Island, which was about 30 minutes south. That's where they farm the oysters. So you can go down there and pick up a bag of oysters and, and drinking, you know, some kind of sparkling wine and just like, this is it. Like it just kind of clicked for me that this was the California story and environment that I wanted to capture in a wine. Like this was kind of like the terroir that I loved so much. And so spending so much time in that environment during such a

such a crazy time in the world and finding so much like peace and connection to nature is what was sort of like bottled up in me. And so then logistically, so now we'll shift to the logistics. In early 2021, a dear friend of mine, his name is Sam Bilbrow and he has a winery called Idlewild and he makes really wonderful Piedmontese grape varieties from Mendocino and has a tasting room in Healdsburg, which is also a lovely little town in Sonoma County.

Laurie Forster (10:57.239)
Mmm.

Laurie Forster (11:04.625)
is.

Courtney Humiston (11:04.72)
definitely visit if anyone's listening. It's really wonderful. And so he had reached out to me through a mutual friend was kind of like, you what are you doing? He was looking for someone to kind of run like reinvigorate the hospitality kind of coming out of COVID startup events again, you know, do sales, we also opened like a little wine shop. And so it's like, well, yeah, let's talk, you know, that can be really interesting. And I could continue living in Jenner and drive in.

And then early on in our conversation, I told him I kind of had this idea, this inspiration to make the sparkling wine. And so he's like, yeah, like let's talk about it. Let's figure it out. Let's make it happen. And so it was really through that relationship and through working as a full-time hospitality manager essentially for his business that he mentored me and gave me the resources to start making some wine.

And so, you know, if you don't have a lot of money, that's a great way to do it. You get the mentorship, you get the resources, and then I'm also contributing, you know, my skills to the business as well. So, that was how it started. That was in 2021.

Laurie Forster (12:00.458)
Amazing.

You're right.

Laurie Forster (12:13.697)
That's great.

Laurie Forster (12:17.683)
And the name, obviously beautiful. The packaging is gorgeous. So tell us a little bit about Delphinium. And I'm going to show people as you're doing that, the ones that are watching. I wore my Delphinium blue for you today. You're welcome. Yes. So we got the team. So it's a blue flower, correct, if I understand?

Courtney Humiston (12:23.296)
Thank you.

Courtney Humiston (12:33.248)
Thank you. Thank you. And I wore the white, so perfect.

Courtney Humiston (12:43.26)
It is, it is a blue flower. The dolphinium is in the Larkspur family, so there's many, many different varieties of delphinium And the one that I sort of use is called a belladonna delphinium And the name, I always feel like I'm going off on a ledge of way too specific, but the word actually comes from an anthocyanidin, which is what gives things their color, called delphinidin.

And it's one of the rarest colors of blue in nature. So, you know, when you see certain colors in nature and they just like pop and you're like, whoa, like how did nature make that? Like for me, that's one of those colors. It's just so, it's just so, so beautiful. And it's also a little bit of a nod to my sister's daughter who was born in 2017 and her name is Delphine. And the label that you see on there is a cyanotype. So it's like a sun print.

of the original bouquet that I gifted my sister on the day that my sweet niece was born. And she's, so she's like, what, seven and eight now? And she's just, she's just wild and creative and so much fun. And so she's just, yeah, she's kind of like my spirit animal, but yeah, that's dolphinium.

Laurie Forster (13:47.061)
huh.

Laurie Forster (13:58.232)
Love that. Well, I have a little here in my glass. since this may be the first time people are hearing about California Cremant, tell us a little bit about the grapes you're using here and how you're creating this wine that may be similar or different than other sparkling wines people have tried.

Courtney Humiston (14:22.385)
Sure, absolutely. I'll kind of talk about what I do and then if you have any questions in terms of comparison that would help people let me know. So what I do is I start with a Musque corn of Sauvignon Blanc, which is a very aromatic Sauvignon Blanc and then Chardonnay as well. And the Sauvignon Blanc is typically picked a little bit riper. So I really want those aromatics to kind of come through.

Laurie Forster (14:30.977)
Yes.

Courtney Humiston (14:50.843)
And then this Chardonnay is picked a little earlier and that creates kind of like more of the texture in the backbone for the wine. And so the grapes are picked, and they're all farmed organically, which has always been really important to me. And I'm sure you and your listeners as well. So farmed organically picked at the appropriate time. I think there's a tendency for sparkling wine producers to feel pressure to pick like super, super early. And I don't think that you always have to. So I'm kind of less interested in like what the

Laurie Forster (15:00.95)
Yes.

Courtney Humiston (15:22.214)
the resulting alcohol and the sugar is gonna be in more like the acidity and then the flavor. So one of my early mentors said, know, to make a great sparkling wine, you have to make a good wine or a great wine and then make a great sparkling wine. So that was very much like in my mind is like, okay, make a good wine and then make a good sparkling wine. So the Sauvignon Blanc in Chardonnay, pretty straightforward, pressed.

Laurie Forster (15:37.399)
Mmm.

Courtney Humiston (15:48.734)
in stainless steel tanks and then fermented natively, so no sulfur or yeast added. And then they go through full alcoholic and full malolactic fermentation. When you're doing it natively, that often just kind of happens concurrently. And then once it's completely done, you run the labs, there's no more malic acid, there's no more sugar in the wine, it's totally dry. Then I add about 15 to 20 parts of sulfur. So that just kind of keeps it safe.

until bottling in January. So by the time the wine is released, there's no measurable sugar or sulfur in the wine at all. kind of, you know, it eats it up, but it just keeps it safe until January, February when we bottle. And then that's bottled with the traditional Lliqueur de tirage. So it's a house cultivated yeast in sugar. And then that's added to the bottle with the wine crown cap, and then it undergoes full secondary fermentation.

that takes about six weeks. So a lot shorter than I ever realized actually. And then for me kind of keeping in the Cremant standards, it's about 10 to 12 months in bottle. So much shorter than you would find in champagne.

Laurie Forster (16:50.037)
Yeah.

Laurie Forster (16:58.55)
And so the.

The resulting, is it considered a brut if you were to use that scale or where would it fall on the dosage? Zero, okay.

Courtney Humiston (17:07.463)
It would be extra-brut. Yeah, there's zero sugar in it. And the dosage that I add, yeah, correct. And I top it with itself. So there's no sugar added at the dosage time. So fully disgorged, so no sediment. then, yeah, it's kind of an interesting process. You take one bottle off the line, and then that bottle is used to fill the other bottles to compensate for the loss.

Laurie Forster (17:18.529)
Lovely.

Laurie Forster (17:30.971)
lovely, yeah. So it's organic, which I know, yeah, like you said, a lot of us care about and are looking for that, but also lots of people are looking and maybe under the wrong impression that sparkling wine has a lot more sugar than maybe a still white wine. And so in this case, zero, which is, you know, probably would please a lot of people. So that's wonderful. And...

Courtney Humiston (17:34.655)
Mm-hmm.

Courtney Humiston (17:46.613)
Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.

Courtney Humiston (17:52.8)
Zero.

Yes.

Laurie Forster (17:57.656)
You know, obviously the grapes are different here than in other cremants or champagnes. How do you, what do you see since, know, the Chardonnay and the Sauvignon Blanc are a team here, you know, the Sauvignon Blanc, guess, is giving you more of the fruit and the bouquet and the Chardonnay, more of the roundness and the body or?

Courtney Humiston (18:20.939)
think so. It's kind of hard to say exactly. Like don't know that there's a clear answer to what it's giving you. I mean, I played around with some different varieties the first couple years, which were when I was working with Sam, those were actually winery blends. So he farms 42 different grape varieties. So there was a lot in the cellar. There was a lot of finished wine to kind of play around with. And so we tasted Riesling, Friulano, because I was open to anything.

You know, and so it was really like kind of putting together, cause I, you know, it was sort of manifesting terroir, right? So I had this idea of like the coast and the saltiness and what I wanted it to taste like. it's like what grapes and what regions can kind of, can we use to kind of create that? So I'm not exactly sure. There's a lot of Chardonnay that grows, you know, in this area. And so I think for me it was the Chardonnay is more about just picking at the right time. And the Sauvignon Blanc I think is more about those, those really lovely.

Laurie Forster (18:52.245)
Yeah.

Courtney Humiston (19:15.189)
those lovely aromatics, but both of them bring really wonderful, like natural, natural acidity.

Laurie Forster (19:20.727)
Absolutely. And if you were to, if somebody said, you know, explain to me how this sparkling wine differs than say a champagne or a California made in the style of champagne. I know you said freshness. Is there anything else you would kind of point people to?

Courtney Humiston (19:37.159)
Yeah, freshness, more kind of primary fruit characters, kind of a mix of like stone fruit and citrus. No red, there's no red fruit. So a lot of, you know, lot of champagnes have some amount of Pinot Noir or Pinot Meunier in it. So this is just a, you know, a hundred percent a bonk de bonk. And I wanted to get a nice purity, a little bit of yeastiness. To me, it's almost kind of like, like walking past a bakery, you know, where you get a little bit of that, that whiff.

Laurie Forster (19:46.433)
like that.

Courtney Humiston (20:05.45)
Or sometimes it makes me think of like a Pilsner beer almost, like that kind of like a little bit of that slight yeastiness. So I wanted some of that, but I didn't want it to overpower the fruit. And I also wanted it to, I didn't want to filter it going into bottle, which is very, very common in sparkling wine. And so I wanted it to have enough acidity, but also a really nice texture, because I wasn't going to be like stripping it through a filter.

Laurie Forster (20:09.377)
Laurie Forster (20:13.132)
Right.

Courtney Humiston (20:31.722)
going into the bottle. So I don't know that answers your question. It's still very like mystical to me, right? Like, and part of me wanting to make wine was to understand it. And so it's interesting this being, 2024 was my fourth year and it was really the first year that I was a hundred percent on my own. So without kind of the tutelage and the umbrella of another winery, it was like, I sourced the fruit, I called the pick. I made.

Laurie Forster (20:34.283)
Yeah.

Laurie Forster (20:52.235)
Okay.

Courtney Humiston (21:00.452)
all the winemaking decisions, you know, kind of by myself, always like, hey, you know, what do you think about this? Or how's that going? You know, always learning, of course, but it was really like scary. You know, it was really scary. But it's like, I knew I was getting it right when I tasted the wine after it, you know, as it was going, but then when it finished ML and then we blended the Sauvignon Blanc and the Chardonnay together. And you're so scared, right? You're like, okay, now the wine is done.

Laurie Forster (21:02.666)
Wow.

Laurie Forster (21:25.27)
I bet.

Courtney Humiston (21:26.058)
you know, and is it gonna be good? And especially when you're not manipulating, right? You're not adding acid, you're not adding water, you're not adjusting, so you're just like terrified. And it's a huge financial investment, right? And so I tasted it and I was just like, it just tasted like delphinium. And I just knew it right away, you know? And so it had that characteristic, but I was like, yes, even as a still wine before bubbles, I was like, this tastes like delphinium. So it's kind of magical is what I'm saying.

Laurie Forster (21:28.843)
Right.

Laurie Forster (21:51.864)
That's great. And you mentioned, yes, you mentioned it's delicious. And you mentioned, I'm here on the East Coast. I'm on the Eastern shore of Maryland, but seafood is the huge thing. We're off of the Chesapeake Bay. So we have oysters from this side and crabs that are also a really big thing. And so seafood is front and center here. I'm assuming that's one of your suggested pairings. Are there any other?

Courtney Humiston (21:56.042)
Thank you.

Laurie Forster (22:21.205)
foods that you just love to pair with the delphinium.

Courtney Humiston (22:25.278)
Yeah, I love pairing it with anything that's super umami. So, know, miso, kombu, any kind of like really savory broths, ramen, it's really good with that. I went out to the coast a few weeks ago and Delphinium kind of organized this seaweed foraging expedition with a professional culinary seaweed forager. And so we went out at like 6 a.m.

Laurie Forster (22:49.921)
Nice.

Courtney Humiston (22:52.412)
into the low tide and we're just like pulling up seaweed, know, and tasting it and smelling it. And so for me, that's just like the ultimate, like anytime you can incorporate like umami or like, you know, seaweed flavors into your food, it works really well with delphinium.

Laurie Forster (23:08.311)
And sushi maybe?

Courtney Humiston (23:10.472)
Absolutely, 100%. That kind of like the koji flavors, that kind of like vinegary, ricey thing. Yeah, it's delicious. Yeah, absolutely.

Laurie Forster (23:11.509)
Yeah, that was a thought.

Laurie Forster (23:21.409)
That's awesome. So if folks want to check out more about the wine, think it's right now you're just shipping direct to consumer or how do people go about getting a bottle if they want to give this a try?

Courtney Humiston (23:34.919)
Yeah, absolutely. I ship almost everywhere in the country. There's a couple of states that are problematic, but pretty much everywhere from my website. It's $45 a bottle. I do flat rate shipping of 20 bucks. So whether you're in California or in Maryland, it's a flat rate shipping of 20 bucks, which I think makes it a little bit easier. And then yeah, I am in wholesale distribution. If anyone's listening that's a distributor, like reach out. am looking for more.

Laurie Forster (24:02.913)
Right? I know. And California is a little crazy right now with the RNDC and all the changes that are happening. But, but this is a beautiful wine. think it's an inspiring story to, I mean, I'm a career changer as well into wine from, from tech. It seems like there's a lot of people that come from other careers into this business, but certainly to go from

Courtney Humiston (24:03.922)
distribution partners.

Courtney Humiston (24:22.152)
Yeah.

Laurie Forster (24:31.735)
being a writer to a song at one of the top restaurants in the country, and then to make this brand a reality. know you're going to be inspiring some people for sure. So you're going to hear from a few ladies or maybe gentlemen who want to do the same. So California Cremant, I know not an official term maybe in the world of wine yet. What do you see as your next steps?

next steps maybe for the industry in sort of defining maybe a California style or maybe it's region by region. Like maybe there's a Sonoma Coast style and there's sparkling wine style in a different region. What do you see next for yourself?

Courtney Humiston (25:16.976)
Yeah, it's such an interesting question. And what I kind of found as a writer and as a sommelier is that people don't like, most people don't really care too much about those distinctions. And I think if anything, like the current political environment is just teaching us that like, you know, borders aren't real, and we need to just keep an an open heart, you know, and, you know, when you when I when I'm writing about wine and

Laurie Forster (25:36.395)
Yeah.

Courtney Humiston (25:44.636)
You're writing about a certain AVA and there's a clear geological structure, like a river or a mountain that changes the climate. You're like, okay, I get it. But there's often these kind of political borders or even a state border, a state line between Oregon and Washington or Oregon and California. And you're like, why are people love California wine when they don't like Oregon wine when it's coming from the same sort of geological area or something, right?

Laurie Forster (26:08.319)
Right.

Courtney Humiston (26:11.485)
So I don't think that I really want to focus too much on laws or, and actually I kind of did try to trademark it, not that I was going to enforce it, but I was just kind of curious about that process. And it didn't work because both of the terms are too general about California and Cremant. But I just think it's, I would love, I want everyone to make more bubbles and make quality bubbles and drink more bubbles and realize like you're saying that they're not.

Laurie Forster (26:32.043)
Agree.

Courtney Humiston (26:37.171)
They're not always sweet. They're not going to give you a headache. Like we're talking about, you know, high quality wine here. I love pet Nat wines. You know, those are super fun to drink as well. So I think, I think for me, it's just about, for me, like defining California Cremant was just a way to tell my story. and so yes, there's definitely other people making wine this way. And if they find that useful to tell their story, like a hundred percent, like, you know, do it. Like words are really powerful.

Laurie Forster (26:52.384)
Mm-hmm.

Courtney Humiston (27:02.361)
And so if that's a helpful term for other people who are making wine in a similar way, yeah, I hope that they do do it. But I am interested in organizing some kind of a sparkling wine festival in California just to kind of showcase the many different types of sparkling wine and just kind of to celebrate what other people are doing. So stay tuned. I'd love to do something like that eventually. Yeah, it would be so fun. Okay.

Laurie Forster (27:10.08)
Yeah.

Laurie Forster (27:16.525)
I love that.

Laurie Forster (27:25.501)
Yes, I love that idea. Send me an invite when you get it figured out. Well, Courtney, thank you so much for sharing Delphinium with us. This is delicious and fun and I love your story. It's very inspiring and we just appreciate you coming on The Sipping Point.

Courtney Humiston (27:31.696)
Yeah, absolutely.

Courtney Humiston (27:44.883)
Thank you so much. It's been a pleasure. Talk to you soon. Cheers.

Laurie Forster (27:46.616)
Cheers. Awesome.