Florida Jim
Florida Jim
Different labels had different protocols in the winery.
Some were very hands on with sulphur additions at the crush pad, inoculation with commercial yeast, chemical additions, fining, filtering, micro-oxygenation, reverse osmosis and any number of other techniques that were intended to make stable, consistent yet quality wine.
While there is a never ending argument among consumers as to hands on makers and those, like myself, who were mostly not, that argument is less prevalent in the winery. It all comes down to folks wanting to make the best wine they can while still making a living. And it hurts, in many ways, to lose an entire lot or even a single barrel. So some folks took prophylactic measures.
I don’t fault them but I preferred a different path.
I was willing to gamble a bit so decided to use no sulphur when the fruit came in, only partial de-stemming for Pinot and 100% whole-cluster for Syrah. I inoculated all my ferments with a technique called pied du cuve (literally, foot of the barrel) which meant I’d harvest about 5 pounds of fruit a week before we picked, then set it to fermenting in 5 gallon buckets at my house so that, by the time we picked, I had a wild yeast population sufficient to start our full on fermentation.
Working in a custom crush one realizes that there is a “house yeast” which will, at some point take over your ferments and kill all the wild yeasts. But the technique I used gave me a significant population of wild yeasts ready to start the ferment and continue it for a day or two. It also gave me CO2 cover in about 12-18 hours. That’s important because there are always yeast cells kicked up into the air when working in a facility with so many different protocols being used. A CO2 barrier helps.
I also foot tread all my red ferments because my feet are softer than a metal punch down tool and since I did a lot of whole cluster, my feet didn’t tear the stems the way the tool did. Additionally, when your stomping around in a bin of grapes you get to smell and taste close-up as well as feel for hot/cool spots and mix things up to make the temperatures more homogeneous.
I rarely added anything to a ferment; if I saw especially low nitrogen numbers, I’d add a bit. But that was a rare thing as my growers knew their stuff and I picked earlier than most folks thereby getting grapes more in balance chemically.
I used barrels for elevage but all were greater than 10 years old. I just can’t stand wood smells or flavors in wine.
Lastly, I was a fan of cross-flow filtration. By doing so, I could lessen sulphur additions at bottling and I could assure biological stability. Cross-flow is much more gentle than pad filtration and I often had wines come out of the filter tasting better than when they went in.
While filtering is a controversial technique, my experience was that not using it led to some clients having whole lots rejected by the market for problems like re-fermentation in bottle or spoilage. And of course, the label had to make it right by taking back already bottled goods. That was a hit I could not afford to take. I was not so driven by philosophy that I eschewed practicality.
No other techniques or additives for me. I was seeking my own voice in wine making and, while I believe I achieved that, I lost barrels to spoilage and a whole lot to Brett; sometimes when you gamble you lose.
Some were very hands on with sulphur additions at the crush pad, inoculation with commercial yeast, chemical additions, fining, filtering, micro-oxygenation, reverse osmosis and any number of other techniques that were intended to make stable, consistent yet quality wine.
While there is a never ending argument among consumers as to hands on makers and those, like myself, who were mostly not, that argument is less prevalent in the winery. It all comes down to folks wanting to make the best wine they can while still making a living. And it hurts, in many ways, to lose an entire lot or even a single barrel. So some folks took prophylactic measures.
I don’t fault them but I preferred a different path.
I was willing to gamble a bit so decided to use no sulphur when the fruit came in, only partial de-stemming for Pinot and 100% whole-cluster for Syrah. I inoculated all my ferments with a technique called pied du cuve (literally, foot of the barrel) which meant I’d harvest about 5 pounds of fruit a week before we picked, then set it to fermenting in 5 gallon buckets at my house so that, by the time we picked, I had a wild yeast population sufficient to start our full on fermentation.
Working in a custom crush one realizes that there is a “house yeast” which will, at some point take over your ferments and kill all the wild yeasts. But the technique I used gave me a significant population of wild yeasts ready to start the ferment and continue it for a day or two. It also gave me CO2 cover in about 12-18 hours. That’s important because there are always yeast cells kicked up into the air when working in a facility with so many different protocols being used. A CO2 barrier helps.
I also foot tread all my red ferments because my feet are softer than a metal punch down tool and since I did a lot of whole cluster, my feet didn’t tear the stems the way the tool did. Additionally, when your stomping around in a bin of grapes you get to smell and taste close-up as well as feel for hot/cool spots and mix things up to make the temperatures more homogeneous.
I rarely added anything to a ferment; if I saw especially low nitrogen numbers, I’d add a bit. But that was a rare thing as my growers knew their stuff and I picked earlier than most folks thereby getting grapes more in balance chemically.
I used barrels for elevage but all were greater than 10 years old. I just can’t stand wood smells or flavors in wine.
Lastly, I was a fan of cross-flow filtration. By doing so, I could lessen sulphur additions at bottling and I could assure biological stability. Cross-flow is much more gentle than pad filtration and I often had wines come out of the filter tasting better than when they went in.
While filtering is a controversial technique, my experience was that not using it led to some clients having whole lots rejected by the market for problems like re-fermentation in bottle or spoilage. And of course, the label had to make it right by taking back already bottled goods. That was a hit I could not afford to take. I was not so driven by philosophy that I eschewed practicality.
No other techniques or additives for me. I was seeking my own voice in wine making and, while I believe I achieved that, I lost barrels to spoilage and a whole lot to Brett; sometimes when you gamble you lose.
