Ratings & Tasting Notes:

No critic score or CellarTracker rating specific to this bottling was found at the time this listing was created.

Cult Wines International Notes:

Paul Masson arrived in California from Burgundy in 1878 and went to work for Charles Lefranc, another French émigré planting vines in the Santa Clara Valley. He married Lefranc’s daughter, bought into the business, and in 1901 built his own winery in the hills above Saratoga, using a twelfth-century Spanish portal salvaged from a San José church as its entrance. He set out to make sparkling wine in the French manner, and the house became known as California’s earliest producer of quality Champagne — a claim this very label makes. The Mountain Winery still stands, listed on the National Register of Historic Places and designated California Historical Landmark No. 733. To a later generation the name means Orson Welles, who intoned the company’s slogan on television: we will sell no wine before its time.

This is a genuinely old bottle. The label reads “Contents 4/5 Quart,” the American standard measure retired when the United States converted to metric bottling at the end of the 1970s, which places this filling before 1980. The neck seal states the wine was naturally fermented in the bottle, the traditional method, and the front label promises a subtly sweet style with piquant bubbles and balanced fruit. Half a century on, no one can say how the wine inside has fared. What is certain is the bottle itself: a survivor from the era when Paul Masson was one of the best-known names in American wine, complete with gold foil, embossed seal and the Saratoga address.

Bottle Size:

750 mL

Storage History:

Always stored on its side in a climate-controlled cellar.

Condition:

Please note: The bottle shown is the exact bottle being sold.

The label dates this one for us: “Contents 4/5 Quart” was the US standard bottle size until metric conversion at the end of the 1970s, so this bottle was filled before 1980.

Sold as a collectible display bottle. A great piece of California history. Fill level is right at the foil line, with visible ullage consistent with the bottle’s age. Wine shows deep amber colour. This bottle is not represented as drinkable and is sold as-is, with no returns.