Sparkling wine is a bright spot in today’s challenging wine market. It ranks third among wine categories in sales, behind Cabernet and Chardonnay, and is the fastest-growing varietal1. The lower alcohol and light, fizzy taste appeals to the healthy mindset of today’s consumers, and the lower price point appeals to their stretched budgets. Sparkling wine is also a natural entry point for younger generations to engage with wine, as it delivers the fruity flavor and familiar effervescence they favor.
Mark Garaventa, Chief Commercial Officer and General Manager of Healdsburg, California-based custom production and crush facility, Rack & Riddle, provides insight. “When I started here in 2009, drinking sparkling wine was a celebratory event, unlike the Europeans who drank it daily. Now that trend is developing here and driving the growth.”
Rack & Riddle has grown from its 2007 founding by Rebecca Faust and Bruce Lundquist to become America’s premier sparkling wine producer. From the beginning, their focus was on partnering with family-owned wineries, and the new leadership team the duo has assembled is expanding those partnerships into the future.
CEO Jeff Tuttle says, “We are committed to bringing the industry sparkling wine in ways to keep it fresh and appealing to a wide range of demographics. We are enablers, eager to partner with wineries and retailers with brands of their own.”
CALSECCO: California’s answer to Prosecco
One of the Rack & Riddle team’s most exciting innovations is coining the name “CALSECCO” to give California its own affordable sparkling wine brand, a response to the booming Italian Prosecco import market.
“California didn’t have a cachet name like Champagne, Crémant or Cava,” Garaventa explains. So, we blended California’s fruity flavor profile with the Charmat method to create a high-quality yet affordable alternative that partners can add to their portfolios.
Expanded Charmat & Flavored wine capacity
Rack & Riddle is adding capacity for the Charmat process, which completes its second fermentation in tanks instead of bottles. The result is a youthful and aromatic sparkling wine that is faster and more cost‑effective to produce.
“Lower cost does not mean lower quality, even though past Charmat wines have struggled with that,” says Garaventa. “But we can get every bit as much quality out of the tank second fermentation as out of the bottle fermentation used in Méthode Champenoise.”
No- and Low-Alcohol Wines
Rack & Riddle has entered an exclusive partnership with SOLOS to use its patented Aroma Recovery System (ARS), a cutting-edge technology that preserves the flavors in dealcoholized wine. This capability will support the development of no- and low-alcohol (NOLO) sparkling wines, two additional industry growth areas.
Rack & Riddle entered into an exclusive partnership with SOLOS, which installed its patented Aroma Recovery System (ARS) in January to support Rack & Riddle’s no- and low-alcohol (NOLO) sparkling wine programs. Solos’ cutting-edge technology preserves the authenticity and original flavors of a product that has been dealcoholized so these wines preserve the aromas, flavors and mouthfeel of traditional wines.
Kim Kulchycki, Rack & Riddle’s Senior Director of Marketing, points out, “Sparkling wine from tank fermentation also makes a great base for cocktails, which are increasing in popularity as cocktail drinkers look for some lighter, fresher, maybe lower alcohol versions. Prosecco cocktails have really taken off.”
Rack & Riddle is living up to its tagline, “The best of all things sparkling,” by expanding its expertise from traditional sparkling wine to include in-line carbonation, Charmat, added flavors and NOLO options and by introducing the thoroughly modern CALSECCO.
Rack & Riddle will be showcasing CALSECCO at its Unified Booth #1218.
- Based on Circana data for the year ending November 2025. ↩︎
Unified Wine & Grape Symposium trade show at the SAFE Credit Union Conventions Center in Sacramento on January 27-29, 2026.
