By Cambria Winery
In simple terms, “racking” means transferring wine from one vessel to another.
A few weeks ago, our crew was busy gently racking the 2011 Julia’s Pinot Noir to get it ready for the blending phase in preparation of bottling.
Winemaker Denise Shurtleff snapped these pictures inside the cellar – and now you get a sneak peek!
The baby vines are here! We started a big replanting project back in February, and we’re very excited to see the beginning of our new vineyards.
The grapes pictured are Chardonnay, but we are also replanting Pinot Noir and Syrah – almost 400 acres altogether. The vines won’t start producing fruit for about three years, and it will take another couple of years before the vines are mature enough to create fruit that’s ready to go into our wines.
So why replant? Because just like anything else – the vines slow down with age. Also, replanting these vineyards gives us the opportunity to improve row direction, vine spacing, rootstocks and clone selections in our never-ending quest for the best possible quality.
We can’t wait to taste the results!
By: Cambria Winery
Harvest is officially over here at Cambria, and things have started to settle down. The remainder of the Chardonnay was brought in on October 14th, leaving only the Syrah still out on the vine. We had to wait an additional two weeks to harvest the Tepusquet Vineyard Syrah, but we finally were able to start picking it on October 29th, and finished picking it on Halloween! We were really happy that we managed to bring those grapes in this early, as the coolness of this harvest made it seem like we might break our previous record of latest harvest, which was November 11th. But we were also relieved, as the sooner the grapes come in the less chance they have of encountering rain!
Although the grapes are all in, we haven’t finished up all of our winemaking work for this year yet. Right now the cellar crew is very pre-occupied with racking Chardonnay into barrels for fermentation. Barrels that have already completed primary fermentation are being topped off with malolactic culture in order to undergo their second malolactic fermentation, to turn some of their bright acidity, the malic acid, into lactic acid, an acid with more creaminess and mouthfeel. Malic acid is the type of acid that you typically find in apples, that kind of sharp, tangy acidity, and so in order to tone that down a little, winemakers often have their Chardonnay undergo malolactic fermentation to introduce some lactic acid, the type of acid that you find in milk, into the wines. As you might imagine, lactic acid is much creamier and fuller than malic. We find that putting our Chardonnay through malolactic fermentation gives them a softer, rounder mouthfeel, which we think makes better Chardonnay.
Our Chardonnays aren’t the only wines that undergo malolactic to produce a better mouthfeel, though. Right now all of our Pinot Noirs are currently in barrel, and are undergoing malolactic fermentation as well. As in our Chard, the malolactic fermentation helps our Pinot Noirs to develop better texture and mouthfeel, enabling our Pinot Noirs to have that sort of silkiness that I love so much in them.
In addition to all of the secondary fermentation going on, today was an exciting day in the winery for our Syrah, as well! Today was the day that we pressed and drained all of our Syrah tanks. The wine is displaying a lot of dark berry aromas and flavors and the color is beautiful (dark, deep purple). The wine will be racked to barrels next week and will undergo m/l fermentation in barrels. Knowing how small and concentrated our Syrah berries were this harvest, I cannot wait to try what I know will be a beautiful, intense, luscious wine this vintage!
As the weekend draws to a close, our crew is very excited that they are finally going to be having their weekends back again! We are looking forward to a nice relaxing break this weekend, and hope you have a great one too!
Due to rain here today and tomorrow, we have stopped harvesting Chardonnay right now, but we still have plenty to do in the winery! Last Friday we picked our blocks of Viognier in the Tepusquet Vineyard, and we are currently barrel-fermenting it.
In addition, all of our Pinot Noir lots finished fermentation, and our crew has been busy draining and pressing them for the last couple of days. After they finish pressing, the crew will get to work racking them into barrels. This will probably take them at least the next couple of weeks to finish.
Both the Viognier juice and the Pinot Noirs look fantastic so far! The Viognier has very nice acidity and lots of delicious flavor, along with beautiful citrus blossom and floral aroma characteristics, and the Pinot Noirs are showing very nice dark colors and lots of intense, deep flavors.
I’m back…
with another harvest update!
After we finished harvesting our Pinot Noir grapes two Wednesdays ago, we had a bit of a lull while we waited for the grapes to get to that perfect stage of ripeness. But by Monday, they were ready, and our vineyard crews began to bring in Chardonnay grapes from the blocks of the vineyard that we usually put into our Katherine’s Vineyard! As of last night, half of our grapes for Katherine’s Vineyard Chardonnay have been brought into the winery, and as of right now, our vineyard crew is in the process of picking even more!
Mmmm, Katherine’s 2011…I can’t wait!
Harvest is here!
Our 2011 harvest officially started last Tuesday. We brought all of our Pinot Gris in that day, and then were able to relax a little bit on Wednesday before picking our first blocks of Pinot Noir Thursday morning! So far we’ve brought in blocks of all of our eight Pinot Noir clones (2A, 23, 115, 667, 777, 4, 5, and 12), and we are expecting to finish picking the remainder of our Pinot Noir by the end of today!
Here are a couple of photos of harvest so far!
Some of our Clone 4 Pinot Noir bunches soaking in their last bit of sun before being harvested:
Our first blocks of Pinot Noir coming into the winery:
And here are our fermenting clonal Pinot Noir lots being punched-down by hand. We ferment these wines in individual barrels, and do what are called “punch-downs” on them to gently break apart the berries, so that the skins of the berries, which contain all of the grapes’ color, flavor, and tannins, will slowly begin imparting those characteristics to the grape juice. It also keeps the grape skins that have slowly begun forming a cap at the top of the barrel from becoming too dry, by periodically re-submerging them in the grape juice.
In case you’re wondering why there is steam coming out of the barrels, don’t worry! It is just dry ice, which we add it in small amounts to keep the must – or fermenting grape juice – cool!
Here is a barrel of our Clone 23 Pinot Noir post punch-down! Doesn’t it have a beautiful color to it?
I’ll be back with more harvest updates as harvest continues. For now, happy harvest 2011!
A couple of weeks ago, I interviewed Cambria’s winemaker Denise about her experiences during this year’s harvest. In Part I of the interview, Denise talked about the weather, this year’s flavor profiles, and the blocks, clones and wines that she considers her favorites this harvest. In this part, she talked about her favorite part of winemaking, how to tell when grapes are ready to be harvested, and how Cambria’s new sustainability certification has changed operations in the winery!
What do you most enjoy about the winemaking process?
I especially enjoy the “agricultural” part of the winemaking process because that is what usually determines the character of the final wine product. Every block of grapes and each lot of wine has a life (or personality of its own) and evaluating the different stages of the wine and the decisions that are made during the winemaking process are always unique to each vintage. Each year, you build on your foundation of knowledge and experience different situations in the vineyards and with the wines, so it is a continual learning process – we will never know it all and that is pretty cool because there is always something new to learn about.
How much time do you spend in the vineyards leading up to harvest? And how much time do you spend in the winery?
Leading up to harvest, I probably spend about 30% -50% of my time in the vineyard. Since the winery is located in the middle of the vineyard, it is very easy to run out to different blocks and run back to the winery for a bit and then return to the vineyard. As harvest gets further along, I am required to be at the winery more because of the amount of activities that are taking place, but by that time, we have a good handle on the state of the grapes, but still spend a good amount of time monitoring the progress of the grapes.
What have you been experimenting with in the vineyards lately?
With the Pinot Noir vines, we have been experimenting more over the past three years with different degrees of leaf-pulling, cluster thinning, and shoot thinning. We have found that removing the lateral canes eliminates any second crop (second crop grows on the lateral canes) and exposing the clusters to sunlight earlier than later provides grapes with better color. Also, we have found that delaying the “green drop” a bit later, the clusters and berries stay small. When we “green drop” too early, the clusters and berries size up too much, and we lose a lot of color and flavor components.
With the Chardonnay vines, we make sure that the winter pruning is performed in a way that the vines will not be over-cropped. The Chardonnay vines are not as sensitive as the Pinot Noir vines, but you have to make sure that they are watched closely – when are the leaves starting to senesce? Or are the leaves bright green and providing enough photosynthesis to further mature the grapes? In the Santa Maria Valley, the Chardonnay grapes don’t taste good and don’t have seed or skin maturity until the grapes start to have a golden color – they don’t taste as good or make as good of a wine if they are picture perfect and bright green! All of the lots (for all varieties) are kept separate by block and clone during fermentation and aging so that we can evaluate and learn about the wines produced from all areas and blocks of the vineyard.
At what point do you really start to scrutinize the grapes for maturity?
Depending on how the weather was during the summer, we will usually start closely monitoring the grapes around the middle or end of August. If we have heat spells that accelerate the maturity, then the process is quick. If we have a long duration of cool weather, the process is long and drawn out. We will start tasting grapes and taking random Brix samples in the vineyard. When it looks like the maturity rate is progressing, we will start bringing juice samples into the lab for analyses and continue to taste the grapes and monitor the vine health.
From a sensory perspective, how do you know when a block of grapes is ready to pick?
The block is usually ready to pick when we see/taste seed maturity (brown seeds; lower astringency), skin maturity (skins are not astringent or bitter); acids are in balance and the grapes display good varietal and fruit flavors. We also look at the vine health – are they in a state where they will continue to ripen the grapes or are they done (yellowing leaves, etc)?
I just heard about Cambria becoming certified by the CCSW for sustainable practices, which is really exciting! Did the sustainability certification process greatly change your winemaking processes this harvest?
Not really, because we had already taken some huge steps towards performing sustainable practices a few years ago. This had included water conservation in the cellars; decreased use of electricity; and using less harmful chemicals for cleaning. It will be an ever-evolving process, but it is something that we have become accustomed to.
