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What’s The Difference Between Crushing & Pressing?
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Fun Fact by Nancy Hawks Miller, Goosecross: What’s The Difference Between Crushing & Pressing?
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What is Malolactic Fermentation?
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Fun Fact by Nancy Hawks Miller, Goosecross: What is Malolactic Fermentation?
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What Is Fermentation?
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Fun Fact by Nancy Hawks Miller, Goosecross: What Is Fermentation?
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White Wine From Red Grapes
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Fun Fact by Nancy Hawks Miller, Goosecross: White Wine From Red Grapes
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Wine Blending Q & A with our Winemaker
There are so many ways to look at blending wine: Blending grape varieties, different vineyard lots, locations, barrel lots and more. I 
sat down with Geoff Gorsuch, our Winemaker, and also Jeff Booth, our consulting winemaker, to discuss the endless possibilities.
Q: I think when we hear the term blending, we tend to think first about blending grape varieties. Can you talk about some of the other ways wine is blended?
A: You can blend different sections of the vineyard, whether or not they’re the same variety – maybe it’s a different clone of the variety or it has different exposure; you can choose different barrel lots: New barrels, older barrels, different coopers, toasting levels or forests; you can blend vintages if you want; you can blend different geographic areas together to broaden the palette of flavors, for instance blending the Yountville AVA with the Carneros AVA, Napa Valley with Russian River or even blending grapes or wines from different states together. As long as you label the wine accurately, anything goes!
Q: It seems like some varieties, like Pinot Noir, aren’t often blended with other varieties, where Cabernet and Syrah are blended all the time. Why do you think that is?
A: Part of it is tradition. Classically, in Bordeaux, Cabernet Sauvignon is blended with other Bordeaux varieties such as Merlot, Cabernet Franc, etc. Or Syrah, a variety that comes from the Rhone, is traditionally blended with Grenache, Carignane or Mourvedre. Perhaps these traditions became traditions because blending improves the wine. We’re always looking for balance in the wine and if the Cabernet is too tannic we know that Merlot has a rounding effect. Also, in difficult climates, a relatively early-ripening red, like Merlot, is a form of crop insurance. If your Cabernet gets rained out, at least you already have the Merlot in the barn.
Q: Our Cabernets are often 100%. Is that by design or is it just the way it turns out?
A: It’s just the way it’s turned out. We always want to make the best possible wine we can, so we make trial blends with various amounts of the other Bordeaux varieties included and then we go with what tastes best, has good complexity and has the best balance. I also want to think about the possibility of making a separate bottling of one of the blending grapes like Cabernet Franc. Do I have enough to blend and also showcase the variety separately? We just released the 2007 Estate Cabernet and it’s 91% Cabernet Sauvignon and the rest Cabernet Franc. That’s what tasted best to us. We also managed to bottle a small amount of varietal Cab Franc.
Q: There are also different vineyard lots and clones of the same variety available. How does that work?
A: I always keep all the vineyard lots separate intitially so I can see how they turn out. Then, later, we can think about blending them together. At that point we don’t really think of them as different clones, necessarily. We just think of them as candidates and put together the blend we like the best. But, certainly, the fact that we have three different clones of Cabernet on our estate means we’ve got a potentially very complex blend without blending in other varieties. We just have to taste and find out.
Q: Can you explain how you set up a blending trial?
A: If, for instance, we were working on a Napa Valley Cabernet blend, we get samples of all the wines in the cellar that we consider to be candidates – the different varieties, clones and barrel lots. We taste them all individually to get a sense of what we’re working with. As we do this, we have a flavor profile in mind for the finished wine and we think about what role any of these samples might play.
It can start out kind of random – a little of this with a little of that just to see what happens. Later, it becomes a process of elimination. There are always candidates that are quite good, but not right for this particular blend, so we begin narrowing things down. It’s really kind of fun. We also like to compare our trial blends to a bottle of the previous vintage or two, to see if there’s good continuity. If folks have loved our Napa Cab we don’t want to turn any sharp corners, stylistically, and disappoint them. This can take a little time or a lot. We sometimes come up with a terrific blend in the first round of tasting trials. Other times it takes repeated trials to get there.
Q: How do you know which barrels to buy in advance of harvest? There’s usually a barrel blend for any given wine.
A: This is a a matter of getting to know the various coopers (barrel builders) over many vintages and knowing what characteristics to expect. Of course barrels, like wine, are agricultural products so they aren’t perfectly consistent from year to year. However, like winemakers, the coopers tend to have an established house style. The way they select and harvest the wood, season it, cooper it and toast it will be fairly consistent from year to year. Over the years we’ve come to prefer certain coopers for the attributes their barrels bring to our wines. But, the mix isn’t necessarily the same for the barrels we buy to age Chardonnay vs. the Syrah. And, we like to keep our eyes open. Just about every year we’ll try a new cooper – just buy a barrel or two – to see if it might be a good fit for us. Experience with both the wine and the cooper is the best way for us to make smart decisions when it’s barrel-buying time.
Q: How do you know how to time the blending? What kinds of advantages or disadvantages are there to blending early or waiting?
A: I believe there’s a benefit to giving the blend time to integrate in the barrels before bottling, so we usually start doing these blend trials at least six months before bottling to get a sense of what we’re trying to do and then we just go from there – these trials can be repeated and tweaked. Once we have a blend that we like it’s good to leave it alone for awhile and then come back to it to either confirm that we’re happy with it or decide to play with it some more. But, once we actually build the blend in tanks in the cellar there’s no turning back.
We can’t alter the blend too much when we’re getting close to bottling time because we have to get the labels approved with the federal government and then get them printed up in time for bottling. Bottling is really difficult to schedule so we have to keep that in the back of our minds.
Q: Geoff, can you tell us about why we blend the tank fermented and barrel fermented Chardonnay?
A: I don’t want to put too much oak on the fruit. The blend varies a bit from vintage to vintage, but approximately half of the juice is fermented in a stainless-steel tank and that wine is very fruity and perfumed – very pure. The other half is barrel fermented, which makes a bigger Chardonnay that’s richer, rounder, toastier, spicier and has more vanillan. Later, I bring the two together for the right balance of fruitiness, complexity and oak.
Q: Can you talk about the blend of our 2006 AmerItal? The blend of Sangiovese and Barbera is unconventional, but so delicious!
A: That’s one of those things we just stumbled on. We put together the blend just for the heck of it and then realized it was really good and also very food friendly. It just happened, but now I’m working on doing it again!
Q: Can you explain what a Meritage blend is and how it goes when you’re working with several varieties? Is it confusing?
A: A Meritage blend is a traditional blend of the major Bordeaux varieties: Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Cabernet Franc, Petit Verdot and Malbec. You don’t have to use them all – the guideline is that no one variety can make up more than 90% of the blend. We’ve enjoyed using all five so far.
Deciding on proportions depends upon your goal. If you want to make a big, beefy style of wine, probably Cabernet Sauvignonwill dominate the blend. If you’re looking for elegance, Merlot and Cabernet Franc are good candidates. With Malbec and Petit Verdot a little goes a long way. Single digit percentages of those varieties will have a big impact on the color, body and spice.
Q: Speaking of elegance, with ÆROS, you’re looking for magic. How do you approach making that blend?
A: ÆROS is our flagship, our benchmark, wine. It’s the most complex, yet it can be the most elegant. We select the components carefully – we’re looking for the most interesting, flavor-packed wine we can make. By the time we’re done with the blend it’s exquisitely balanced – not too much tannin, not too much acid, easy to drink but with great complexity.
Logistically, we look for potential ÆROS lots first in the blending season - the ones with layers of flavor and elegance. Since this is a Meritage and we also make the Estate Cabernet and the Howell Mountain Cab we want each wine to have a distinct personality. So, taking out the ÆROS components first doesn’t really hurt our chance of making excellent blends for those other Cabernet-based wines. It’s really fun to have that challenge, as winemakers, and it’s a feeling of real accomplishment on those years when it comes together.
Q: Once you’ve created the perfect blend in the lab, how do you translate those very small lots in the lab to production-sized lots?
A: You’ve just got to keep a really accurate account of how that blend came together because it’s kind of complicated with all the different barrel lots. We use graduated cylinders to measure all the different components that go into the blend and then it’s just a matter of translating it into percentages to make the larger blend in the cellar. Of course nothing is bottled from barrels. The completed master blend is stored in stainless-steel tanks until it’s ready for bottling.
Wine Components: Tannin
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Fun Fact by Nancy Hawks Miller, Goosecross: Wine Components: Tannin
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NVWR® 101 – Wine Clarification
April 6, 2010 by David
Filed under Napa Valley Wine Radio
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There are many processes behind the scenes when winemaking, some more complex than others. In this episode we thought it would be interesting to present what is meant by “racking” and “fining” the wine.
Jeff Booth of Jeff Booth Consulting describes the why, when, and how of the various methods used to clarify the wine.
I suppose you could say that we’re going to clarify wine clarification!
Wine Components: Acid
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Fun Fact by Nancy Hawks Miller, Goosecross: Wine Components: Acid.
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Q: Sulfites/California Wine/Headaches
Question from Susan: We have a friend who claims that she can only drink French reds because California reds have more nitrates/nitrites and give her headaches. Is this possible or is it a bit of wine snobbery?
Reply: Hi, Susan! Thanks for writing! I think your friend must have meant sulfites rather than nitrites. I’m pretty confident that nitrites aren’t a significant part of the wine picture (although they’re found in water, so…). They’re used to preserve hot dogs and salami and stuff like that. The sulfite question comes up pretty frequently.
It’s hard to blame her for thinking that French wine doesn’t have sulfites because, up to quite recently, only the US and Australia required the sulfite warning on the label. If you vacationed in Paris and drank French wine, a few years back, you wouldn’t have seen the warning. But, now you would (unless it’s an old vintage) and this applies to all the wine-producing countries in the European Union.
The law is very similar to the American one and enologists have determined that a bottle of French or California wine is likely to have around 80 parts per million. Any variation is more from brand to brand than country to country. Goosecross wine usually leaves here at around 30-35 ppm.
Sulfites, or sulfur, have been used to preserve wine for centuries. Even in Roman times it was used to help create a seal for the container. Without a little sulfur the wine loses its fruit and has a short shelf life. Fortunately, if the wine spoils it’s not harmful, but it’s not much fun to drink, either, which is why sulfur is still in use. Sulfites turn up in a lot of foods, too, especially dried fruit.
At this very moment, enologists are working to try to eliminate the need for sulfur. The success, so far, is by way of reducing it. Today’s wine has much lower sulfur levels than wine did as recently as 50 or 60 years ago.
This isn’t to say that you can’t buy wine that doesn’t have added sulfites. The “Organic Wine” designation prohibits sulfur additions to wine, as opposed to “organically grown”, which only refers to the farming (and even there, elemental sulfur application to the vines is permitted to keep mildew under control). The reason you don’t see very many “organic wines” is that they usually don’t taste very good. I should add that organic wine may still contain sulfites because they’re a by-product of the fermentation. The level, in that case, is extremely low.
As to the headaches, chemists keep telling us that sulfites don’t cause headaches, but statements like that can set off a maelstrom of heated opposition from those who believe otherwise. Your friend might try eating some brightly colored dried fruit to see if that causes a headache. If not, something other than sulfur is the cause. California wine is quite often higher in alcohol than French wine, due to climatic differences, so that’s the more likely culprit.
I hope that puts your debate to rest! May you and your friends enjoy wine, whatever its nationality, in good health! Cheers! Nancy
Wine Trivia du Jour
Here’s a crazy one for you:
True or false: The substance that makes microwave popcorn buttery is the same as the one that makes Chardonnay buttery.
What do you think? Too strange to be true? So strange that it has to be true?
