Issue link: http://winesandvines.uberflip.com/i/131907
WINEMAKING wood ceiling above her fermentation tanks that is lovely. Staglin Family's underground fermentation cellar is well insulated and spacious enough to keep clean easily, which is a key component to maintaining a high level of wine quality over the long term. At the other end of the spectrum, I've worked in plenty of older wine facilities with uneven floors that cannot be readily cleaned, have poor lighting (how do you clean up mold and dirt if you can't see it in the first place?) and poor air circulation, so that barrels near the floor are 5ºF cooler than those at the top of the stack. Wineries that cannot be readily cleaned tend to start smelling like musty basements. Quality control becomes damage control: trying to correct mistakes and contain microbial contamination. Why not prevent all those headaches? Designing a winery with good insulation, good cooling, good lighting and good drainage will lead to better overall sanitation. This makes for better wines. W&V: How do you help a client reconcile his or her wish list with the financial budget? Welch: I've witnessed firsthand in every project that it can be difficult during the design process to separate out the nuts and bolts from the bells and whistles. I was involved with a design project years ago where berry-sorting equipment was ruled out as being too pricey, but the full commercial kitchen stayed in the plan, then ended up being used about once every five years. Every member of the winery team will have a different perspective about what matters, and the owner and architect will need a very clear vision of how to balance production, marketing, sales and administrative functions into one facility that works well for all. Too much spent on retail sales areas, fancy kitchens, etc., may help marketing efforts, but without great wines to sell, what's the point? So, as a winemaker, I always have to advocate for spending money on the production space and equipment. I think that well-made wines need to be the foundation of a successful wine business. Too much spent on retail sales areas, fancy kitchens, etc., may help marketing efforts, but without great wines to sell, what's the point? How do you reconcile all of that? Figure out what matters most right now and hold onto those "wish list" items for a few years down the road—incorporating them into a Phase Two expansion plan—and design the winery with expansion in mind! Every project I've been involved with has had discussions about how to design Phase One so that a Phase Two expansion would be a possibility. This means watching rooflines so they can be extended if need be, and not placing major electrical panels, power lines, gas mains, etc., at the end of the building where expansion might occur. Consider how the winery access road might be able to handle more traffic and slightly larger trucks. How would you go about handling more wastewater, a larger bottling line, more case goods, more visitors? Where would you put more fermentation tanks if wine sales are strong? We always hope that, 10 years after construction, the winery is successful enough to warrant expansion. The time to think about how that will occur is before the groundbreaking of Phase One. Before it was a site for making wine, the Davies family facility was a car dealership (pictured in 1967 and today in the image at top right). Converted car dealership M ost of winemaker Celia Welch's clients start from scratch when building a winery, but the Davies family of Schramsberg Vineyards in Napa Valley, Calif., is developing the new winery for its J. Davies and Davies Vineyards brands in a former car dealership in St. Helena, Calif. "It may seem an odd transition," Welch says, "but actually the lot fits a medium-sized winery quite well." The footprint of the building has remained the same, and "we didn't have to change the roofline," she says. The front wall of the building, which faces Main Street, used to be all glass, and that has been changed to a solid wall. Plans for the winery incorporate a number of "green" touches. "We're looking to make the winery building very eco-friendly," Welch says. "The design team is considering rainwater collection, solar power, on-site wastewater pre-treatment and energy efficiency as the winery design progresses." CEO Hugh Davies adds that the company is seeking LEED certification for the building. L.D. The winemaking facility in St. Helena, Calif., is home to high-tech crush equipment for wine grapes. Win es & Vi n es JU NE 20 13 43