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TECHNICAL SPOTLIGHT WINEMAKING October 2018 WINES&VINES 47 isolated so that Aafedt and Stemmler could grade them A to F on quality and share those scores with the various growers. "You can roughly grade the wines by how the grapes look, whether they're clean and pretty," Aafedt said, "but the way to really identify a piece of a land that either needs work or needs accolades is to keep it separate and taste it separate." Very unusual for a winery of this size, Bogle barrel ferments 50% of its Chardonnay in small new American oak barrels and hand stirs the lees monthly to create a rich texture similar to that of wines at twice the price. The Chardon- nay hall in the winery holds 12,000 barrels and another 80,000 barrels handle the reds. Bogle's lineup includes Chardonnay, Sauvi- gnon Blanc, Pinot Noir, Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, old-vine Zinfandel, Petite Sirah, Es- sential Red (blend), a Port-style dessert wine and two wines under the Phantom brand — a red blend and a Chardonnay. New this year is a 50th anniversary bottling of Petite Sirah. The limited-edition silk- screened bottle is available only through the tasting room and wine club. "We are featuring our Petite Sirah as the wine has been a staple of Bogle for the last 50 years," said Jody Bogle. "It is the very first grape variety our grandfa- ther planted in 1968 and was the first red wine we bottled under our own label in 1978." The Petite Sirah grapes are handpicked from Bo- gle's Quick Ranch estate vineyard. Making all the wine "at home" Aafedt says the new facility aids wine quality in several ways, including a gravity-assisted receiving center, six new presses, a wide variety of tank sizes that enable his team to keep each vineyard lot separate and a TankNet system to monitor and control fermentations. "It was amazing to see such high-quality juice coming from our direct-to-press opera- tion," Aafedt said about the 2011 crush. Having all the fermentations take place "at home" also means Aafedt can smell each tank every morn- ing during fermentation and Stemmler can do the same each afternoon. At harvest time, a portion of the Clarksburg Sauvignon Blanc and Chardonnay grapes are hand picked, and the rest of Bogle's supply is machine harvested at night to keep the grapes cool. Truckers drive their rigs to the top of a massive ramp which was part of the construc- tion to deliver the grapes, which are dumped into a receiving hopper, augered to a conveyor belt that enables hand sorting and moved to one of the six Diemme Velvet presses supplied by Collopack Solutions. The winemakers cold settle the white juice for 36 to 48 hours. They inoculate all the Char- donnay with CY3079 yeast and half goes di- rectly into all-new 62.5-gallon American oak barrels from World Cooperage for fermentation and malolactic. It stays on the lees for 8 to 10 months and warms itself to a peak of about 65° F in the 52° F cellar. Monthly lees-stirring gives the wine more body and a richer texture. The other half of the Chardonnay goes to stain- less steel tanks for fermentation with the same yeast but no malolactic. Aafedt said the oak that World Cooperage uses for their barrels is Missouri and/or Mid- west grown, extra fine grain and has "the lon- gest, deepest toast we can get without creating oak." He prefers Profile 105 as the toast level, and uses a lot of that for the Chardonnay, but also likes how it works on reds after its initial use for the Chardonnay. The second fill wine picks up less dill fla- vor – which used to be a major concern with American oak for some winemakers — be- cause the slow toasting process penetrates deep into the wood, according to Aafedt. The coopers at World Cooperage use infrared heat sensors on the staves as they toast them over an oak fire. A computer screen shows a graph that helps the cooper manipulate the barrel for the desired effect. Fruit-forward and varietally-correct wines are the goal, with subtle oak aromas and fla- vors, Aafedt said. "We don't really want one thing that will smash you over the head in terms of butter or oak." For Sauvignon Blanc the process is much more reductive, employing CO2 in dry ice form on the grapes, and as a gas in the presses and in tanks. All the Sauvignon Blanc is gentle- pressed and fermented in stainless steel while kept at 55° F for about 30 days. Red, red wine The red wines get what Aafedt called standard treatment, but aided by technological advances in monitoring and manipulating the fermenta- tion process. Grapes are delivered to the top of the ramp for destemming one block at a time in one of two Diemme Enologia Kappa ma- chines from Collopack. The must goes to tanks for fermentation that lasts about seven days and reaches average temperatures of 75° F but can get into the 90°s in the caps. Crew members run pumpovers twice a day in each tank using attached pumps on some tanks and prompted by TankNet read- ings of temperature. They use Toad irrigators to wet the caps, but keep a human eye on the process through 36-inch diameter manways that Aafedt specified for this reason, and mak- ing adjustments in pumping speed and dura- tion as needed. The winery has roughly 350 tanks made by Westec Tank & Equipment that range in size from 1,000 gallons to 129,000 gallons. The fermentation tanks were designed to accom- modate trailer loads from one-half load (11 tons) to six loads (132 tons). Tanks are outfit- ted with temperature probes for the cap and KEY POINTS Now marking 50 years as a grape grower, the Bogle family has built a winery big enough to bring all 2.5 million cases home. Bogle takes unusual care of its $10 wines, keeping vineyard lots separate, barrel fer- menting half its Chardonnay and more. In 2018 Bogle accepted the California State Fair Lifetime Achievement Award and the Green Medal for Leadership in sustain- able winegrowing and winemaking. Third generation siblings are now in charge; left to right, Warren, Jody and Ryan Bogle.