Issue link: http://winesandvines.uberflip.com/i/112023
TECHNICAL REVIEW WINEMAKING Old Winemaking in New Facilities Ken Brown makes Pinot Noir at ultra-modern custom-crush site in Santa Barbara County By Tim Patterson I n the course of more than three decades of distinguished winemaking in California���s Santa Barbara County, Ken Brown washed his share of barrels and pulled his share of hoses. These days, he mostly writes work orders, never shovels out a tank and still makes outstanding, soughtafter wine. He is not complaining. Brown played a major role in developing two iconic Santa Barbara wineries, Zaca Mesa and Byron, building them from the ground up into major brands. Now he makes a modest 2,500 cases of ultra-premium wines (mostly Pinot Noir) under his own label, but he does it in a facility that is anything but modest: The gleaming, ultra-modern Terravant Wine Center in Buellton, Calif. Brown not only became the star tenant when he moved in for Terravant���s first crush in 2008, he also put his years of expertise to work advising the owners on some of the design elements. Terravant general manager Randy Pace says that by offloading the manual labor, Brown���s new home ���lets him concentrate on being a winemaker.��� Brown seems to agree. This latest incarnation is working well enough that Brown is increasing his production, since his growing wine club threatens to swallow the allocation for retail and on-premise sales. Inside Terravant The businesslike entrance to the Terravant custom-crush facility in Buellton, Calif., (top) belies the cellar operations such as mechanical punch downs (bottom) taking place inside. 30 W in e s & V i ne s M AR C H 20 13 The custom-crush facility bridges two worlds of winemaking. It is home to about 30 alternating proprietors (APs)���mostly smallbatch, artisan operations that do their fermentations in bins and their aging in barrels. At the same time, it pumps out much larger volumes of wine for custom-crush/private-label brands, working in tank-sized lots, sometimes incorporating purchased bulk wine and making use of the forest of stainless steel that dominates the main building. Terravant bottles around 350,000 cases of wine per year; for the 2012 crush, AP labels were responsible for about 1,000 of the 4,200 tons processed. Ken Brown straddles both worlds, making his own wines in small-batch mode and consulting with several of the larger, private-label endeavors. Terravant���s full-time, year-round staff of about 100 can handle most anything a winemaker might want, the exceptions being that Terravant doesn���t pick your grapes or sell your wine. Terravant charges its APs by the case, with the price depending on the volume to be processed and the details of the winemaking protocols requested by the clients. The winery consists of two connected buildings, each about 30,000 square feet���one primarily for fermentation and tank-