Santa Cruz Mountains
CHAUCER’S CELLARS, part of BARGETTO WINERY, has been producing premium, award-winning Meads for over 50 years.
Chaucer’s Mead is produced from 100% natural honey. Our Raspberry Mead and Pomegranate Mead is a blend of our Mead and a small portion of fruit wine. Our Sparkling Mead is made from 100% organic honey with orange and ginger essences.
Enjoy our mead chilled, as an accompaniment to various entrees and desserts, served with your favorite dried fruit, nuts and cheeses or as an ingredient in your favorite mixed drink. Find some ideas on our recipes and pairings page. Our Mead can be served chilled or mulled with the included spice packs. Great for gifting!
Learn more about our CHAUCER’S wines.
The History of CHAUCER’S CELLARS
The CHAUCER’S dessert wine story begins on the banks of Soquel Creek in the Santa Cruz Mountains of California. In 1964, a young winemaker, Lawrence Bargetto, saw an opportunity to create a new style of dessert wine made from fresh, locally-grown fruit in Santa Cruz County.
With the fresh market for plums in a state of disarray, the experimental vintner decided to make wine from the Santa Rosa Plums growing on the winery property. Using the skills he learned from his father, he picked the fresh plums into 40 lb. log boxes and dumped them into the empty open-top redwood fermentation tanks. Since it was summer, the fermentation tanks were empty and could be used for this new dessert wine experiment.
Immediately, after the fermentation began, the cellars were filled with the delicate and sensuous aromas of the Santa Rosa Plum. Lawrence had not smelled this aroma profile in the cellars before and he was exhilarated with the possibilities.
After finishing the fermentation, clarification, stabilization and sweetening, he bottled the wine in clear glass to highlight the seductive color of the pure crimson.
While winning award after award for this wine, Lawrence decided he would try his hand at other fruit wines including blackberry, raspberry, peach, pear, olallieberry, cherry, strawberry and honey.
His commitment to quality and perseverance have paid off with the ongoing growth of the CHAUCER’S wines over the decades.