Sphaerics Wine

Sphaerics Wine. Exciting wines lead to intrigue and curiosity about a brand. Take for instance, Sphaerics. A lesson in patience, husband and wife, Brian Ball and Laura Jones made a commitment among themselves that they would only start a wine project if they were given access to an incredible vineyard. After 10 years of patiently waiting, building both perspective and relationships in the wine industry, the right opportunity presented itself in 2022. From the outset, they built their venture independently, with no outside investors or employees; Laura focuses on winemaking while Brian oversees sales.

Brian first met Chris Jackson of Jackson Family Wines while serving as General Manager of Skipstone Winery. During one of their conversations, Chris shared that his father, Jess Jackson, took pride in selling grapes from some of the family’s most prestigious vineyards to up and coming talented winemakers, including to early in her career, Helen Turley. Over time, however, the family gradually moved away from that practice. In 2022, Chris mentioned the family would be willing to sell grapes from their Upper Barn Vineyard and would be honored if Brian and Laura would make a Chardonnay from that site.

Upper Barn Vineyard sits within the Jackson Family’s 5,100 acre Alexander Mountain Estate; Jess Jackson purchased this property in 1995. The overall property ranges in elevation from 400 to 2,400 feet above sea level while Upper Barn Vineyard sits at approximately 1,800 feet ASL. The Chardonnay vines were planted in 1982 by rancher Ed Gauer using Old Wente selection on AXR1 rootstock with 10×12 spacing. Beginning in 1987, when Helen Turley was winemaker at Peter Michael, grapes from Upper Barn Vineyard were used in their Mon Plaisir bottling through 2008. The vineyard was also designated for Marcassin from 1991 to 2001, and starting in 2010 Chardonnay from this site was bottled under Jackson Family’s premium brand, Stonestreet.

The site is above the fog line and features thin topsoil; the rugged environment creates challenging growing conditions imparting a certain level of stress not found on valley floor locations. The site is notable for its early lignification, with seeds and stems beginning to brown around 20° Brix, making harvest timing especially critical to achieve their desired expression in the wine.

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Brian and Laura first met in 2012 while volunteering at a wine making symposium in Davis, CA, a month before beginning their studies in viticulture & enology at UC Davis.

Brian’s path to wine was a pivot from finance. He grew up in Virginia; after graduating with a B.S. in Mathematics from William & Mary, he worked as an operations analyst at J.P. Morgan in New York City, where a mentor on the trading desk told him in 2009, “you should go do what you really want to do.” Taking that advice to heart, in 2010 he began applying for wine industry roles through WineJobs.com and joined Vinify Wine Services in Santa Rosa in 2010. While at UC Davis, he also served as wine director at Ma(i)sonry Napa Valley, commuting regularly between Davis and Napa Valley. He was the General Manager for Skipstone Ranch & Winery from 2017 through 2026.

Laura’s background also started outside of wine. She grew up in Laramie, Wyoming, and graduated from Pepperdine University with a B.S. in Biology before working in healthcare research in Los Angeles. In 2011, she moved to Northern California to pursue winemaking; while at UC Davis she received a coveted scholarship through Confrerie des Chevaliers duTastevin and worked at the prestigious Domaine Armand Rousseau in Burgundy. She later spent two and a half years as an enologist at Cliff Lede Winery.

Ultimately her goal was to both live in Napa Valley and work at a local winery that made premium Chardonnay and Pinot Noir. Timing was everything. While still working at Cliff Lede, one afternoon, winemaker for Abreu Vineyards, Brad Grimes pulled her aside as she was walking to her car. He mentioned that he thought she was ready to take the next step in her winemaking career. Marc and Teresa Aubert of Aubert Winery were looking for someone to join their winemaking team. Brad recommended Laura to them for the position and in the spring of 2017, she joined the team at Aubert where she assisted Marc in making their acclaimed Chardonnay and Pinot Noir for 5 years. Incidentally Aubert had previously worked with Chardonnay from the Upper Barn Vineyard when he was the winemaker at Peter Michael.

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Sphaerics is a term used in the history of mathematics relating to spherical geometry. It is also a play on Brian’s last name of Ball, referring to a spere or a geometric rounded shape. Incidentally Brian’s undergraduate degree was in mathematics. The inspiration for the name was a reference in a treatise by the Hellenistic mathematician Theodosius dating from around 200 B.C. The nomenclature of all their wine names are tied to Sphaerics.

Select Wines
Whites
Chardonnay
The Sphaerics Chardonnays are thoughtfully and patiently crafted. Fermentation using indigenous yeast begins in barrel and continues cold and slow, helping attain a seamless integration with oak. Primary fermentation completes before malolactic fermentation which proceeds slowly, with the total fermentation process lasting up to nine months. The wines are never stirred (battonage); additional texture/richness is not desired or needed. French oak barrels from three different cooperages are used, each contributing individual elements to the wine. These are: Damy, Ramon, and François Frères.

The 2024 Sphaerics Chardonnay “overline”, Carneros Napa Valley is made with three clones including Old Wente, Hyde, and Mount Eden. This wine is medium gold in color. The nose is floral, with scents of honeysuckle and citrus blossom, layered with beeswax, butterscotch, vanilla, crème brûlée, baked pineapple, and ripe stone fruits including apricot, peach, and nectarine, along with a lift of lemon zest. On the palate, this wine offers flavors of vanilla, crème brûlée, pineapple, golden apple, Alphonso mango, and papaya. The texture is soft, supple, and silky, while a vibrant thread of acidity provides a tautness if you will and reflects its Carneros terroir – the foggy mornings, persistent breezes, and the cooling influence of San Pablo Bay, expressing a clear and defined sense of place. Its lightly creamy texture is lifted by this notable brightness.

Overline is from a 120-acre vineyard owned by Cliff Lede Winery; this is the coolest of the Sphaerics Chardonnay sites. The wine sees 45% new French oak during its élevage. Production was 500 cases. The name overline is tied into the ancient Greek alphabet. This alphabet had no numbers, rather, every letter could be a number if there was an overline above it. And the source vineyard is located just ‘over’ the Sonoma County line.

The 2024 Spherics “on days and nights, Chardonnay Russian River Valley. This wine is medium gold in color; heady with plenty of up front ripe aromatics, this wine smells like pineapple, yellow nectarine, honeysuckle, creme Brule and vanilla. Both ripe fruit and sweet baking spices complement each other well. Orchard and tropical fruited, the palate offers flavors of apricot, pineapple, yellow peach, nectarine and papaya. A crowd favorite, this wine delivers plenty of both aromatic and hedonistic pleasure, in terms of its flavor and textural profile. The mouth feel sports a present weight, but is never heavy, as its supported nicely by a bright and rich acidity. And a light spicy lingering oak influence character on the finish. The oak has a bigger presence here, but is never heavy. This wine was aged 11 months in 60% new French oak and then 5 months in stainless steel; it was bottled un-fined and unfiltered.

This is the warmest site they work with. The vines were planted in 2004 to the old Wente clone; the site is steep and rocky. The name ‘on days and nights’ is a reference from the ancient Greek treatise written by the astronomer and mathematician Theodosius of Bithynia who observed how the sun moves through the sky throughout the year.

The 2024 Spherics “if and only if” Chardonnay, Upper Barn Vineyard Alexander Valley; this wine is medium gold in color. Aromatically the most elegant and perhaps restrained of their 2024 bottlings, the nose smells pineapple, golden apples, ginger, yellow mango, apricot and papaya. Be patient with this wine; as it evolves it offers an additional set of aromatics including vanilla, white chocolate and butterscotch. Rich, expressive and extremely well layered, but never heavy, the tension between fruit, acidity and texture works in harmony. This wine tastes like papaya, apricot, mango, yellow peach, golden delicious apples. A lively thread of acidity balances out its ripe character and keeps its overall cadence extremely fresh. And there is plenty of persistence on the finish, in terms of both flavor and texture. Shows some phenolic grip, with a fleshy texture. Age worthy. This wine was aged 11 months in 70% new French oak, then spent 5 months in stainless steel tank before being bottled unfined and unfiltered. NWP score 97-98.

The name if and only if, refers to their promise to only start a wine brand if they were presented the opportunity to work with an exceptional vineyard. And it also ties in to mathematics – the term ‘if and only if’ is used when two statements are logically equivalent. For example statement A is true, statement B must be true, and vice versa.

Reds
Pinot Noir
The 2024 Sphaerics Pinot Noir ‘superset; this is their only non single vineyard wine. Grapes were sourced from two vineyards owned by the Martinelli family, from their Frei Road and Bondi Home Ranch properties. This wine is a blend of clones 828 and 777. The grapes were fully de-stemmed, then fermented in tank and then aged in French oak barrels (30% new) with a long drawn out malolactic fermentation. Its élevage was 16 months, with no racking until right before bottling. This wine is pale to medium ruby; the nose is Pinot-esque, but with no ‘Pinot sweat’ or spice here as the aromatics are focused on the varietal fruit characteristics. It smells like raspberry, licorice, rose petals, a light note of lavender and red cherry. And a subtle kiss of cocoa powder as the wine evolves. Brian describes this bottling as, ‘a fun wine’ – it falls into the crowd friendly category. Shows plenty of California ripeness, but this is countered by a balanced and bright acidity which keeps this wine fresh, especially noticeable on the finish. Easy drinking with flavors of raspberry, strawberry, red cherry and Santa Rosa plum. The tannins are lightly textured with a gentle tug.

Superset is a math term referring to a grouping that contains numerical subsets. Brian and Laura refer to this as their Sonoma Coast Pinot Noir.

In 2025 Brian and Laura acquired a 55 acre property just outside of Occidental in Sonoma County; 13+ acres are planted to Chardonnay and Pinot Noir. That same year they harvested one block of Pinot Noir. And in 2026 they will harvest their first Chardonnay from this site. This wine will be called Angle Chase – referring to the method of determining angles of various objects. In terms of this vineyard, this name refers to chasing the angles of the sun the entire day based on the numerous exposures on their hillside property. 400 cases were produced for their inaugural vintage.

Hospitality
Tastings are hosted by either Brian or Laura at Tamber Bey Winery; production for Sphaerics moved here in 2026. This 22-acre site (Sundance Ranch) is located a few minutes drive north of the center of Calistoga. The use of the property is unique; an existing building was converted to a winery, and a prior house now serves as the tasting room. However, what is rare in Napa Valley is a winery combined with the equestrian world (reference Shadybrook and Rustridge wineries for more details). There is space for more than 40 horses on site and at any given time a number of horses are always kept here including horses owned by area vintners. A full-time horse trainer lives on site; some of their more exotic horses include Arabian endurance racehorses and some miniature horses.

Until 2020, this was also home to Napa County’s largest horse rescue organization, the non-profit, Sunrise Horse Rescue. The rescue horses have since been moved to a new site further east on Tubbs Lane.

Allow about 90 minutes for the Sphaerics tasting; visits begin in the cold cellar, tasting through barrel samples of future releases of both Chardonnay and Pinot Noir. And then moves to a seated space to taste through current release bottlings.

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Production has grown in the first few years. In 2022 they produced merely 200 cases of Chardonnay from the Upper Barn Chardonnay. Then 600 cases in 2023 with the introduction of additional wines and 1,400 cases in 2024. Sphaerics sells direct through their website, but distribution is also a key part of their sales channels with their wines currently sold in 8 states. For more information, to purchase wine, to join their mailing list or make an appointment for a tasting, visit: www.sphaericswine.com