In the Cellar
Our philosophy in the cellar is to gently guide the fruit through the fermentation process and into barrel. That being said, our winemaking style isn't really a style per se. We routinely tweak our winemaking protocol depending on what the vintage gives us and constantly experiment with new techniques and equipment. There is no absolute, perfect way to make wine due to the dizzying array of variables that we face every year. We strive to bring complexity to every wine that we make by NOT treating every fermenter with the same protocol. You can't make wine from a recipe. You've got to be intuitive and listen to what the grapes are telling you when they show up at the door and react accordingly. However, there are some constants that ring true in the way that we treat the grapes during harvest.. Typically, the grapes will be destemmed slowly and not crushed to get as many whole berries in the fermentation as possible. Depending on cluster maturity, some lots will get a percentage of whole clusers added to the destemmed fruit.
Sulfur dioxide will be added to the fermentation bin at levels from 30ppm to 100ppm. This will kill or reduce the population of micro-organisms in the bin; keep the must from oxidizing, and also help to select for the wine yeast, saccharomyces cerevisiae. We typically cold soak our fermenters for as many as 10 days at a temperature of 45 to 50 degrees. This helps to extract color from the skins in an environment without alcohol. That way, the seeds won't break down and release their bitter tannins. Pinot Noir also has a habbit of racing through the fermentation too quickly and ruining your chance to extract what you need before it's overwith. Cold soaking gives you the 
time to make sure that you get what you need from the skins before fermentation ends and that the temperature rises slowly for a nice and even fermentation curve. The cap of grape skins that floats up to the surface in the bin has to be re-submerged on a daily basis."Punchdowns" are all done by hand. This process is very labor intensive, but it also creates an intimate relationship with how the grapes are progressing through the fermentation. After the cold soak is over, each bin will be inoculated with a different yeast strain or warmed up to let the native yeasts take control. When fermentation begins, 
punchdowns could increase to 3 to 4 times per day to help get oxygen into the must, redistribute hot and cold zones, and to possibly extract a little more color and tannin if needed. The punchdowns will then decrease to 2 per day as the fermentation ends so that the new wine won't become overextracted with tannins in a high-alcohol environment. The new wine is then pressed off to barrel, or to a settling tank for 3 to 5 days and then moved to barrel. Our Pinot Noir barrels are all 3-year air dried French Oak barrels from various forests in France. About 10% to 50% of these barrels are new, depending on the structure of the new wine. Malolactic fermentation (also called secondary 
fermentation) of the wine occurs in barrel and converts the sharper tasting Malic acid to the softer Lactic acid and is normally done on all red wines. When Malolactic fermentation is complete, the wine gets a dose of sulfur dioxide to kill any micro-organisms and also to protect the wine from oxidation. All of our wines age on the lees until they are ready to bottle. They are never racked from barrel during this time in order to protect the delicate perfume of Pinot Noir. After barrel aging,the wine is transferred out of the barrel using inert gas to gently push the wine into tank with minimal oxygen exposure. Typically, the wine will stay in tank for one to three weeks before it's bottled. We normally bottle age our wines for about 4-12 months before releasing it to the public to let the wine become accustomed to it's new surroundings in bottle.
These ideas are all aimed at preserving the flavors and the aromas of terroir and the nuances of each vintage. Pinot Noir shows this like no other grape does with its delicate complexity. Each bottle is like a sliver of time that's slowly evolving, capturing the essence of the vineyard and the vintage.
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