A visit with Cristina Torres of Marimar Estate

When you’re deciding whether to chat by video or in person with Cristina Torres, co-owner and general manager of Marimar Estate – and the only child of Spanish-born founder Marimar Torres – you choose in person. The winery looks like a Spanish farmhouse, and is set as deep and firm as a peridot in a tiara on a steep hill in the Russian River Valley’s celebrated Green Valley subregion. The estate is a world away yet only 12-minutes’ drive from boho-chic downtown Sebastopol. 

This redwood-fringed pocket is prized for its sandy-fine Goldridge soils and lingering marine layer. Fog and ocean breezes flicker back and forth with warm sunlight to produce wines that feel serious and musical, and somehow both rich and weightless. 

The comfy little foyer is lined with family photos and cookbooks written by Marimar herself, who is now 81. The adjacent tasting room is decidedly Spanish: elegant and earthy, with a high ceiling and wooden dining tables. A memento from the Prince of Spain (now King) can be found in a corner. There is an antique brandy still. Ceramic Spanish vases serve as spittoons. 

Marimar Torres is a force. She is the fourth generation of Spain’s storied Torres wine family, and struck off to plant her flag in California in 1986. Born in Barcelona in 1945, she holds degrees from the University of Barcelona and Stanford, and studied enology at UC Davis. She built the Torres wine export business in North America nearly from scratch. 

Cristina has a degree in Economics from Princeton (you know it’s somewhere impressive when she says simply “the East Coast”). She worked in fashion for a spell, then moved to London for a position with the respected wine importer John E. Fells. Next came a Wharton MBA, and stints at Jackson Family Wines and Deloach. Finally feeling she had enough outside experience, she joined Marimar formally in 2020. She is fluent in Catalan, Spanish, English, and French, has her WSET Level 3, and oversees Marimar Estate’s finances, sales, marketing, and production.

Cristina is warm, sharp, fun, and humble. We touch on many topics, including her mother’s bold (and largely successful) experiments growing Spanish grapes alongside the AVA’s classic Chardonnay and Pinot Noir. As you will see toward the end of our chat, the hospitality here is genuinely underpinned by the European attitude that quality must take precedence over efficiency.

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What are you working on today?

This time of year, we're definitely springing into motion on events. We just hired a new person in the tasting room to staff up for the summer. We're also starting up our summer happy hours. It’s the first Friday of the month, June through October. It's a different theme or activity for each one, with live music. We’re very family friendly and dog friendly. We do wines by the glass and by the bottle, and cheese plates, out on the patio. Next week, it'll be tacos made by our vineyard crew. 

We walk into the main room, glasses of Tempranillo in our hands. The whole winery was built in the style of a Catalan farmhouse, and all of the furniture came over from Catalonia.

Your mom is from northeastern Spain, and of course from a very significant wine family. Where exactly did she grow up? 

She spent a lot of time in Villafranca, which is the capital of Penedès and the wine region close to Barcelona. That’s where the original Torres winery is, and the Torres offices. So she spent a lot of time there and as well in Barcelona, because they're only an hour apart. She’s got two older brothers, and these are my grandparents [gestures to two beautiful, painted portraits on either side of the fireplace]. 

We make wines only from estate fruit – we have two vineyards. We don't buy any fruit – we never have, never will. Where we are here is the Don Miguel Vineyard, named after my grandfather, and then our second vineyard in Freestone is the Dona Margarita Vineyard, named after my grandmother. 

Some other fun things to show you… these were tiles that we found at an old family home, they’re the newest edition to this room, traditional Catalan tiles. My grandmother had collected them, so we restored them.

And then another tidbit is up there [points to a stained glass window near the ceiling]. Our family crest, and the logo for Torres. 

Oh right, the castles! Your mom and you are part of the Torres wine legacy. Is Marimar Estate directly connected to the larger Torres business?

This has always been a separate business from the original family business. But there are still a lot of synergies. My uncles invested in building the winery. My mom bought them out around 15 years ago or more.

It’s an incredible property here, truly Green Valley, which is a big deal in the Pinot Noir world. Your mom was really early in this area. How did she identify it as where she wanted to get established? 

It's true. Well she took years to find a property to plant under vine. She started looking in the early ‘80s, and she looked all the way up and down the coast from Mendocino to Monterey. And she ended up being shown this site, which at that time had been an apple orchard. It had never been planted to vines, but it had been prepared for planting. The owners were going to invest in a vineyard, but then they ran out of money and decided to sell the property. She just fell in love with it, these beautiful rolling hills. 

Who else was out here at that time? 

Iron Horse – the Sterlings were out here. The Duttons. It was still way more apple and plum country. She was told that this site would be good for Chardonnay and Pinot Noir, and not too much else. And my mom was like, “Oh well that sounds great, I love Chardonnay and Pinot. I'm in.” So that was it. She was really just captivated by the beautiful spot in the redwoods. 

And you have a number of interesting Spanish varieties you play with, including this Tempranillo?

Yes, I’ll tell you about those, but first let’s go see the cellar. 

Near the door is a barrel head commemorating her mom as the 2024 Sonoma County Icon of the Year by Sonoma County Vintners. We walk across the small patio, which is buzzing with guests. There is a dramatic view of the forest. An ocean-tinged breeze greets us as we round a corner to the front of the cellar. 

She introduces her production manager, Taylor Bianco, who has been on the team for five years, and tells him we are drinking the 2021 Tempranillo. He tells us what a great year it was. 

Why so, Taylor?

Taylor: In cooler years, the variety can stumble, and that was a warmer, really ideal growing season. And the wine is still such a baby, too, five years in. 

It tastes so great, I hadn’t even thought about the aging aspect. How long can we hold onto this? 

Taylor: Gosh, I think you could easily hold it for 15, 20 years. Tempranillo’s aging potential is kind of like Cabernet.

Cristina: We just opened the 2014 Tempranillo, which is the first vintage we bottled, and it was tasting really good. I say, buy a case, and open it now and for the next 12 years.

We head into the cellar, which is strikingly tidy. 

We have a full-time vineyard crew. They’re full-time, year-round employees with benefits. They’re such an important part of our team. These wines are made in the vineyard, and the team has been with us on average almost 20 years. 

We pick at night, of course, to retain those aromas. In 2022, we got a Pellenc optical sorter, which is such a cool piece of technology. Especially on vintages where it's a trickier vintage, say ‘22, where there was a big heat wave. It’s really ideal for selecting out any raisins. Taylor's been vinifying some of the sorted-out fruit as well, and then seeing whether it turns out to be the same level as the rest of the wines. And sometimes, it does go back into the main blend!

So you can set it aside as a precaution, and then see where it goes and whether you like it. 

Exactly. Taylor is amazing. Hopefully you can interview him sometime. So we have four concrete eggs – we started using them first for our Godello. So as far as Spanish varieties go, we grow Albariño, Godello, and Tempranillo. We have an experimental little section of Mencía, as well. 

How much wine do you make?

Our total production is between 7,000 and 10,000 cases a year. 

What do you think is so appealing about a small, family-run winery? 

I think that people, especially when they come here, try our wines, hear our story, I think they feel the very human connection. And definitely when they walk into our tasting room, it feels like you're walking into our family home, so add on a Spanish twist in there… my mom’s written cookbooks on Spanish cuisine, and so we serve all of her recipes here. I could give you a long list of things, but if I had to focus, I'd probably say family tradition, the women behind it, and the Spanish influence that’s especially unique. 

It’s also lovely that you have the strength of the Torres family winemaking history. You get both the boutique experience, and this authoritativeness from being connected to something bigger.

The clout, you might say, yes. And at the same time, we like to make people feel at home and not have it feel stuffy. Very down to earth. 

Where does the Tempranillo grow? 

We can walk a little bit, it’s just around the corner. 

As we walk uphill, she talks about her mom’s experiments. 

Mom started with Parellada, which is the classic Cava grape varietal. And gosh, I think she gave it a good eight, ten years, and it really just never took off – didn't get the concentration. 

Cristina points out a heritage Pinot block, and some Chardonnay planted in '86.

We've done some inter-vine replanting, where a vine dies and we replant it individually. So you see multiple ages of vines together. It is definitely more expensive, and for those younger vines, it's tough for them to compete against already established root systems. There are pros and cons.

It’s appealing in terms of complexity, the idea of different vine ages in the glass.

Right. So in 2004, my mom planted our first Albariño over at our Freestone vineyard. It comes from Galicia, which is so cold and rainy, so we thought it made sense, but it didn't ripen in Freestone – it was too cold. So three years later, of course, we plant it here, and it's really taken off. The Tempranillo she planted around that time as well. Some of it’s head trained, goblet-style. 

We peer up at the Tempranillo block. The whole property is on a series of hills, which lends an aura of excitement to every row and makes farming particularly labor intensive.

It’s interesting to think about the patience and length of time in these experiments – trying something for eight years and then concluding it didn’t work. 

You follow your parents' path, right, and then there might be a bit of a balancing – a reaction effect. My mom is definitely one to – which is part of how she’s gotten to where she is – she’s one to just make a decision and go, no looking back. And then if we change our mind, or that didn't work, all good. Dust yourself off, and just change. She makes the decision, and it’s partly gut. The fallout doesn’t even cross her mind. It's like: seize the moment. I'm, in fact, much more analytical. I like to have my data, and think of what the different steps along the way are, and what our goal is, and the risks. 

Asking whether it makes sense to attempt something?

Yeah, exactly. So I think it ends up working out nicely that we have this balancing effect on each other. My mom pushes me to move things along more, and then I think in these crazy times, running the numbers is super helpful, too. 

She raised me on her own, as a single mother. And I'm an only child. It's always been the two of us, with the rest of the family in Spain, and I’ve been fortunate to visit a lot and spend time there. Always twice a year, summer and Christmas, and so it's really a special thing that I've always been able to keep in touch with the family and with the larger family business as well. And I still go a good two, three times a year. 

My mom and I are also on the board – we're shareholders of the Spanish business. 

As we head back to the tasting room, a large, harmless, brown-and-white striped California king snake crosses our path.

Speaking of the habitat, you’re regeneratively farmed and organic? 

Yes, we do practice regenerative farming, and no till, and we are also certified sustainable in both vineyards and here at the winery. We're also 100% solar powered. 

Amazing. 

We use no herbicides, and we think in terms of the least impact possible, but being so close to the ocean, it’s quite a cool wine growing region, and there is a lot of fungal disease pressure. We just try to do the least amount [of interventions] to still keep the vineyard healthy.

Any thoughts about why Tempranillo is a nice summer wine? 

Barbecue! Anything you throw on the grill, Tempranillo is the perfect, perfect pairing. 

It also has a sense of agility to me – even though it’s a fuller wine – so it’s not an overbearing red when it’s warmer out.

Exactly.

I know I need to let you go…

Can I tempt you with a few Spanish cheeses? I'll be right back. 

We are back in the tasting room, and Cristina is due at a meeting with her mom and Taylor. She returns with what looks like a tiny paella pan holding a lovely assortment that includes Cabra al Vino – wine-rubbed goat cheese – and Manchego.

Club members get the cheese with their complimentary tastings. I bet we have some Godello open. Would you want to try a splash of it?

I would, but I don't want to keep you…

Cristina retrieves the Godello.

It was originally grown in Spain, in Galicia. A little bit inland from where Albariño is most famously grown, but still very close to the Atlantic. It's especially known in Valdeorras. It's another aromatic Spanish white varietal, unoaked, and we do 50% concrete egg and 50% stainless steel. 

Pure grape. It tastes so graceful. I can imagine this flowing with pretty much every situation. 

Yes, and it has this fun, textural element going on, too.

When I joined the team and realized that there were going to be 400-plus cases of Godello a year, I was like, “How are we possibly going to sell that?” And the truth is, it's been super successful. It’s something different. It's fresh and it's bright. My mom likes to say that it has the aromatics of an Albariño and the body of a Chardonnay. Most of her decisions turn out fabulous.

You have an MBA?

Yes, that was a phenomenal experience. I've been able to have a really, really spectacular education, which has been fun to share with my mom, too, because she never had access to that as a young woman. This was a very different time in Spain. She was born in '45, so in the '50s, '60s she wasn't supposed to study too much. That was more for her brothers. 

Just smart enough to be an interesting wife.

Exactly. My mom speaks six languages – my grandmother said that a lady should know languages. 

Can I offer you to enjoy the patio for a little bit with another splash with the cheeses? 

I should probably go...

I'll pour you a little bit of the Chardonnay–Albariño before I leave. 

Who else does that blend?!

Literally no one that I’ve heard of. That's a small bottling for the wine club. 

Cristina pours the blend, which is excellent.

This is a heck of a wine. I wonder if we could feature it sometime. 

It's a fun one. It's about 60% Chardonnay, 40% Albariño. We do usually sell out of it every year, but if we do a little advanced planning, we could make a little more. 

You did tell me you like Green Valley Pinots… 

Cristina introduces me to Perry Koon, the tasting room manager, and asks him to bring me one of their six estate Pinots. She takes her leave after urging me again to stay and enjoy the room.

The aromatics on this Pinot are incredibly vivid.

Perry: You get that aromatic personality from native yeast fermentation that's hard to replicate. Our barrel-fermented wines go through native fermentation, and anything in the screw caps that don't go through malolactic and don’t have any oak on them are inoculated. 

The Pinots from this site do have that purity of fruit that I think is just classic Russian River exuberance and texture. And the other vineyard is in the cooler West Sonoma Coast area, so it has a very distinctly different profile, which is fun.

I’d say the Pinots from this estate are a benchmark example of the region. 

I already asked Cristina, but do you have any thoughts on why some of us love small family wineries?

The word that I use all the time is authenticity. It's something that people strive for, but they don't always have or achieve. There are a lot of [ways wineries come about], and they can have great wines, but they’re not all as organic or authentic an experience. Whereas Marimar might take you into her kitchen, show you around, show you family photos. Those small touches that make you feel like you're in someone’s life. 

‘In someone's life.’ I think you nailed it.  

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This conversation has been edited for clarity and length.