Issue link: http://winesandvines.uberflip.com/i/116287
WINEMAKING 2012. So far, the winery only has the one concrete tank by Nomblot. Stambor said fermentation in that tank is managed just by running a hose up to the top. Stambor said he's considering a punchdown system but wants to make sure it's safe for those working in the cellar. He said he has run some trials with a forklift attachment but is still evaluating the best fit for the winery. "We're just trying to figure out how best to do that," he said. "I don't have to be able to punch the entire surface. If I can punch a big enough spot in the middle it will cave in on itself, which would be fine." Managing all those barrels "What really separates the production here is the barrel fermentation," Stambor said. Just under half of the entire reserve winery's production is fermented in barrels, which means each vintage Stambor and his team manage about 600 mini-lot fermentations. Cellar staffers knock the heads out and place the barrels beneath the destemmer. Once a barrel is filled, the workers bang the head back on and place a barrel in OxO racks. Originally designed for stirring Chardonnay lees, Stambor said the racks are an ideal fit for managing the small cap of fermenting must inside a barrel. The crew at BV even went so far as to modify the rollers on the racks so that they can be driven by a power drill rather than by hand. The barrel racks are spread out in the rear of the winery behind the wood vats, concrete tank and press. Workers can access the bottom two to three barrels on foot but use a scissor lift to reach the top rows. The winery uses several French coopers including Marchive, Marsannay, Francois Freres, Seguin Moreau and Gamba. The smaller fermentations don't produce much heat, so the cellar needs to be heated during harvest. One of the tricks to managing barrel fermentation, Stambor said, is to not spin the barrels too fast; the unexpected discovery came from placing a Plexiglas barrel head on a few barrels. "We found out that early on in the fermentation, if you spun the barrel too fast essentially what happened is the must inside the barrel never moved. The barrel just kind of spun around it, and you so you didn't get any of the mixing you thought you were getting," Stambor said. He said he's found Petit Verdot is particularly well suited to the method and typically accounts for the largest share of barrels. The early exposure to oak seems to really moderate the perception of tannin— "not the quantity of it, but the perception," he said. "The wood character, because you get it into contact with a barrel so quickly, the integration is much more seamless.… I've never tasted barrel-fermented Cabernet that's tasted over-oaked." Once fermentation is done, Stambor said workers pop the heads back off and use a special forklift dumper to empty the barrels directly into the winery's Bucher Vaslin JBL basket press. He said he generally uses all of the free run and a good portion of the press wine for Georges de Latour. After pressing with the basket press, the pomace often is unloaded and then taken out to the winery's huge bladder presses for use in some of BV's other programs. The reserve wines are not fined, but Stambor said he does run them through cross-flow and membrane filters from Pall Corp. "I just don't believe the reward is worth the risk," he said of bottling unfiltered. Georges de Latour is bottled by a Bertolaso filler and corker and labeled with a machine from P.E. USA Inc. Bottles are sourced from Changyu Glass Co. with Rich Xiberta corks and Ramondin capsules. Respect the true character of your wine. An effective new preventive tool against Brettanomyces. Now TTB listed under CFR 24.250 ORIGIN - No Brett Inside is a natural polysaccharide extracted from a fungal source of chitin (Aspergillus niger). ACTION - No Brett Inside interacts with Brettanomyces causing their elimination from the wine. RESULTS - Many scientific studies and winery trials have validated the effectiveness of treatment with No Brett Inside. Win es & Vi n es A PRI L 20 13 37