Marimar Estate Marks 40 Years Since Its First Chardonnay Vines Went Into the Ground

Marimar Estate, a family-owned winery in the Green Valley area of the Russian River Valley, said Wednesday that it is marking 40 years since founder Marimar Torres planted the first chardonnay vines at its Don Miguel Vineyard in Sonoma County.

The anniversary dates to 1986, when Torres established the vineyard in what was then a less developed part of the Russian River Valley for premium wine growing. The winery said many of those original vines are still producing fruit, an unusually long lifespan for vineyard blocks and a point the family links to the site’s conditions and its farming methods.

The milestone comes as Marimar Estate enters a new phase under the leadership of Cristina Torres, the winery’s general manager and the next generation of the family involved in the California business. The company said the anniversary will be used to highlight both the history of the project and its current focus on estate-grown wines and sustainability.

Marimar Torres is part of the Torres wine family of Spain and founded the California winery after spending more than a year looking for land. According to the company, she considered a property in Napa Valley and another, larger site in the Russian River Valley before choosing Sonoma County because of its cooler climate, coastal fog and suitability for Burgundian-style varieties.

Two years after the first chardonnay planting, she added pinot noir at a high vine density modeled on European vineyards, a less common approach in California at the time. The winery said that decision helped define the estate’s long-term identity around chardonnay and pinot noir from cool-climate sites.

Today, Marimar Estate farms about 30 hectares, or roughly 74 acres, across two estate properties in the Russian River Valley and the West Sonoma Coast. It produces wine only from grapes grown on its own vineyards, according to the company. Its current lineup includes chardonnay, pinot noir, albariño, godello and tempranillo.

The winery said both its vineyards and winemaking operations have held sustainability certifications since 2017. It also said the winery and residential buildings on the property are supplied with solar power. Those measures are part of a broader effort by California wine producers to reduce water use, energy consumption and chemical inputs as climate pressures and production costs continue to rise across the state.

Marimar Estate is based near Sebastopol, in western Sonoma County, where the combination of marine influence and lower temperatures has made the region a center for cool-climate grape growing. Green Valley, where the Don Miguel Vineyard is located, is known for morning fog and a long growing season, conditions that can help grapes retain acidity and develop more slowly than in warmer inland areas.

The winery said its wines have received multiple scores above 95 points from trade publications and critics over the years. It did not release production figures in the anniversary announcement.

Marimar Torres said in a statement that she chose the Russian River Valley site after concluding it was especially well suited to the varieties she wanted to grow. She said that, at the time, there were few nearby vineyards, but that the property’s conditions stood out.

The Don Miguel Vineyard was named after her father, reflecting the link between the California estate and the Torres family’s longer history in Spanish wine. The family has presented the Sonoma project as both an independent California operation and an extension of a multigenerational wine business.

The anniversary arrives at a time when many family-owned wineries in California are dealing with succession planning, changing consumer demand and pressure to invest in farming and energy systems that can better withstand heat, drought and market volatility. By framing the 40-year mark around continuity and a transfer of leadership, Marimar Estate is also signaling how it plans to position itself in that environment.

The company did not announce any expansion plans with the anniversary. Instead, it emphasized the estate model it has built over four decades, with fruit sourced only from its own vineyards and management remaining within the family.