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WINEMAKING TECHNICAL SPOTLIGHT 48 WINES&VINES August 2018 The north- and south-facing walls of the tasting room each feature floor-to-ceiling glass doors, created by Progress Glass in San Fran- cisco and installed by the Mazzonis' general contractor, Wright Contracting in Santa Rosa. The 3 acres of land directly surrounding the tasting room are currently decorated with little flags, indicating the recently planted vines of a future field blend of Zinfandel, Carignane and Mourvèdre, which they'll use for future vintages of Capella — a red wine blend created each year as a nod to the family's jug wine history. The Mazzonis' pride and joy rests inside the winery — a state-of-the-art facility that in- cludes a barrel room, a wine laboratory and the foundation of the building: 10 open-top concrete fermentation tanks. The tanks were custom-built by Sonoma Cast Stone in Petaluma, Calif., and include the Zialena insignia, a ravioli stamp, on each tank. "When my Zia Lena (for whom the winery is named) passed away, my mom ended up with her brass ravioli stamp," Lisa Mazzoni said. She took that stamp to designer Aly Anderson at Notion Creative in Sonoma and has incor- porated it into all of the winery's branding. Sonoma Cast Stone worked alongside the architectural team to figure out how best to design the winery around those concrete tanks. Indeed, the fermentation tanks were the first thing put in place at Zialena Winery, with ev- erything else constructed around them. "They're actually structurally attached to the building," Lisa Mazzoni said. "When they were cast, they had to put bolt holes in certain places in order to attach it to the rest of the building." It was Mark Mazzoni's decision to focus the winery around concrete fermentation. Accord- ing to Lisa Mazzoni, her brother had attended a trade show showcasing the effects of concrete on wine: It's more porous, allowing more oxy- gen during initial fermentation; provides a richer mouthfeel; and imparts a kind of briny backbone to the flavor profile. "He was fasci- nated by the science behind it and the overall quality of the wines produced," she said. Each tank holds 3 tons of grapes and in- cludes internal glycol tubing to control tem- perature, with heating coils at the base and cooling coils farther up top. The tubing is hooked up to TankNet computer displays on a side wall and monitored by assistant wine- maker Jesse Giacomelli. Giacomelli said the tanks can warm up to about 110° F and cool down to below freezing. "One of the best things about concrete is that it's so well insulated," Giacomelli said. "With stainless you can get heat spikes, but here that'll never happen. I don't think we ever get above 85° F." However, the drawback, Giacomelli said, is the cleaning process. "You can't steam-clean or pressure-wash concrete tanks because they're so delicate," he said. Giacomelli gets in each tank with his intern and, using a food- grade detergent and scrub brush, scrubs each of the tanks by hand, neutralizes them with an acidic solution and rinses each with cold water. "It's a laborious, three-step process," he said. Focused small-batch winemaking With just a 3,000-case annual production, the winemaking team is a small one, composed of Mark Mazzoni, Giacomelli and one intern. During harvest, Zialena doesn't hire harvest hands directly, but instead sources about 20 to 24 laborers through Munselle Vineyards. With only red grape varieties currently at maturity in the estate vineyards, harvest season lasts from about the first week of September through the last week of October, according to Giacomelli. RUSTY BY DESIGN C orten steel, a weathering steel sup- plied by Western Metal in Phoenix and installed by Steve Lanning of Lanning Construction in Sonoma, Ca- lif., lines the front exterior of both the tast- ing room and winery. Chosen for aesthetic reasons, Mazzoni said, the steel takes on a rusty appearance after being exposed to the rain and actually increases the building's resistance to further corrosion. The corten steel also adds a design element to the in- terior, framing the entryway and the tasting bar. Without weather elements to corrode the metal, the walls are instead marked by the hands of Zialena's guests. "Wet hands, sweat, natural oils all leave a mark on the wall," Lisa Mazzoni said. "We're not sure who started it, but it's a fun tradition, and it looks cool." Zialena Winery ferments all red wines exclusively in cement tanks by Sonoma Cast Stone. All Zialena's grapes are hand-harvested and whole- berry fermented.