Winemaking

We're often asked, 'how do you make your wine?'  So here are the basics of how we make our red wine.   You can also see a short slide show of the winemaking process in our Photo Gallery.  Click here to get to the Photo Gallery page,  then in the Selected Gallery choose the Winemaking option.

Crush/Harvest

Each fall the grapes are picked and brought by tractor down to the winery.   The grapes are dumped into a stainless steel crusher/de-stemmer machine where they are . . . . crushed and de-stemmed.  The stems are spit out of the back of the machine and the crushed grapes (now called must - Latin for young wine) are pumped into a plastic bin.

Fermentation

Yeast is added to the must, starting fermentation.  This is the actual process of turning grape juice into wine.  The yeast converts the sugar in the grape juice into alcohol, and the winemaker monitors the converstion with a close eye (and a few taste buds).  This process takes anywhere from 5 to 10 days, depending on the style and varietal of wine being made.

Pressing and Barreling

Once fermentation is completed, the wine is ready to be separated from the must.  The must is poured or pumped (depending  on how tired we are) into our press.  Inside the press a thick rubber balloon like bladder is inflated with water, squeezing the must between the bladder and the outer stainless steel mesh.  The wine runs out through a channel at the base of the press into a holding container, from where it is then pumped into barrels. 

Aging

We age our red wine in oak barrels for about 18 months, and during this time the  wine mellows and clarifies.    About 4 or 5 times during the aging process we rack the wine.  This entails gently pumping the wine out of the barrels, off of the particulate matter (lees) that has settled out over time.   Removing the wine from the lees improves flavor and clarity.

Bottling

After our winemaker is satisfied the wine is ready to be bottled, it is filtered into our large tank.  From there it is run into the hopper of our 4 nozzle bottling machine.   Four bottles at a time are level-filled, then corked, capsuled, and labeled.   The bottles are then laid down for a few months prior to release for further aging (and to lessen the effect of bottle shock).