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WINEMAKING TECHNICAL SPOTLIGHT 38 WINES&VINES September 2018 D espite the long gestation and lofty ambitions for the Double Canyon winery in the new Red Moun- tain Center industrial park in West Richland, Wash., the focus of the facility is incredibly tight. It's Cabernet Sauvignon. And not just Cabernet Sauvignon, winemaker Kate Mi- chaud says as she shows off the equipment in the 47,000-square-foot facility that opened last September, but small lots of Washington's most-planted grape. "One of the things that really spoke to me when I took this job was the scale of all of this," said Michaud, who, among other previ- ous experience, had a hand in the launch of the boutique Chardonnay brand CheckMate by Von Mandl Family Estates in British Columbia. "This scale is not common. Usually you're doing 2,000, 18,000 tons, or you're doing a couple hundred tons, maybe, so your tanks are scaled accordingly," Michaud said. "You either have all 12,000-, 16,000-, 18,000-, 24,000-gallon tanks or you have a bunch of tanks that are 500 gallons to 1,500 gallons and a bunch of barrels." Double Canyon fits in between, with a bias toward small. Its largest tanks are just 7,200 gallons, and the equipment parallels blocks in the winery's estate vineyard overlooking the Columbia River. "Those blocks kind of equate to 7 tons, 14 tons, 12 tons," Michaud explained, just right for its 2,500-, 4,500- and 3,500-gallon tanks, respectively. "It also allows us to keep all our blocks sepa- rate. Because we don't have 19,000-gallon tanks, we're not forced into making picking decisions that put two, three blocks together to be able to (fully) utilize the tanks." She said she believes the connections inevitably translate into quality defined by phenolics rather than sugars. "In my interview with (Crimson chief wine grower) Craig Williams, I was telling him I was after this holy grail of how to make an ageworthy wine," Michaud recalled of the process that led to her being hired in early 2017. "He told me the holy grail is bound anthocyanins and left me with that." The quest for bound anthocyanins — a combination of the tannins and anthocyanins in grape skins — framed the construction of the production facility and now drives how Michaud works within it. Crimson began planning for Double Canyon in 2005, seeking, in the words of general manager Will Beightol, "the next great place to make world-class Cabernet." The financial crisis of 2008 put realization of the vision on hold, but not the preparations. Planting of its estate vineyard, now at 107 acres, began in 2007 on 185 acres in the Horse Heaven Hills near Alderdale, Wash. The first grapes were harvested in 2010 and went into tanks at Ar- tifex Wine Co. in Walla Walla, Wash. Plans for a dedicated production facility began to take shape in 2013. "We were at a couple of custom-crush facilities for a number of years and decided to invest into our own facility, mainly to have a little more control," said Sheldon Parker, senior director of operations with Crimson Wine Group. The design team included Parker, Beightol, Craig Wil- liams and winemakers Michael Beaulac of Pine Ridge Vine- yards in Napa Valley and Casey McClellan of Seven Hills Winery in Walla Walla, which Crimson acquired in 2016. The result was a simple, tilt-up facility geared toward production rather than visitors, though a 1,000-square-foot tasting room opened on-site this summer. (Crimson also pours wines from its portfolio at The Estates tasting room near Seattle's historic Pioneer Square.) Construction cost Double Canyon, Single Focus New facility provides focus and room to grow for Washington winery By Peter Mitham TECHNICAL SPOTLIGHT DOUBLE CANYON Double Canyon's expansive crush pad sits on an 11-acre property with municipal services.