Harvest 2022 Update
Our first harvest of 2022 began in early August with 10 tons of Gewürztraminer from the McCormack Ranch vineyard outside Rio Vista in Solano County. Since then, Bertus, Matteo, and the rest of the cellar team have been working day and night trucking grapes, pressing fruit and tending to our fermentation tanks barrels. Harvest is hard work, and our boys have been busy.
The Stats
290 Tons Harvested
36 Varieties
40 Vineyard Sources
Foot-Stompin'
If there's one guarantee for our cellar interns, it's that they'll be stomping A LOT of grapes. While many winemaking cellars solely utilize mechanical presses for their fruit, our philosophy is that foot-stomping provides a more delicate approach than a mechanical press and allows for stem inclusion, which results in more complexity in the wine. We love utilizing this method for our skin-fermented white wines, light red wines, and sometimes even Cabernet Sauvignon! More than a third of the grapes that pass through our cellar are foot-stomped.
Punch-downs and Pump-overs
Every day (and sometimes twice a day), each of our fermentation tanks and bins goes through a punch-down or pump-over process. Throughout fermentation, the grape skins and stems float to the top of the vessel as a large cap and we need to make sure our fermenting juice is properly mixed up.
We're trying out appassimento!
Italian wines have always been near and dear to our hearts, and this year, our assistant winemaker Matteo is taking the lead on a very special project. Appassimento wines, like the Italian Amarone, are made from partially dried grapes, which results in more concentrated colors, aromas and flavors in the wine. In the photo above, Matteo is carefully laying out each cluster onto screens for the drying process. We can't wait to taste the resulting wine!
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