Andrew Guard

Healdsburgh (Sonoma)

I have long been a fan of the wines of Ceritas and have known John Raytek for quite some time so it is with great pleasure that we are able to offer Ceritas wines to our customers in Australia.What they are able to achieve with Pinot Noir and Chardonnay is astonishing.

These are a truly exciting and qualitatively superb range of wines that display the fine signature of their different terroirs, the most distinctive quality in fine wine.

Ceritas wines are among the finest wines I have tasted anywhere.

ceritas (Spanish) – mineral expression of the soil

“The mission at Ceritas is to craft single vineyard expressions of place through Chardonnay and Pinot Noir. The sources for our fruit along the Sonoma Coast and westernmost Russian River Valley — Porter-Bass, Ritchie, Escarpa, Helgren and Deermeadow — were carefully chosen for their winegrowing merits and also for their singularity. Each allows us the opportunity to craft balanced and distinct wines which will stand out on the dinner table. Just as oysters grown in Tomales Bay taste altogether different from those grown in Puget Sound, our wines are reflective of the growing seasons and soils from which they came.

In the vineyard we allow our sustainable farming practices to be dictated by observation and empiricism rather than by prescriptive farming. All of our vineyard sites are either farmed bio-dynamically or are in the initial stages of being converted to biodynamic farming methods. We believe that biodynamic farming methods, and focused and site-specific attention, give the vines the greatest opportunity to experience each growing season, to respond accordingly, and ultimately to yield grapes with the unmistakable flavors and smells of their time and place.

In the winery, we keep things simple. We look at winemaking from a standpoint that owes more to tradition than it does to cutting-edge innovation — we more often find ourselves trying to understand what not to do rather than what to do. The crafting of each vintage is like a journey, in which nature sets its own course. Our role is to adapt, to proceed with humility, and to learn.”
–John and Phoebe Raytek, owners

Written by Andrew Guard — February 28, 2019