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W i n e s & V i n e s M A R C H 2 0 1 4 75 WineEast miwinebarrel.com Stainless Steel & Oak Wine Barrels... Midwest, East Coast, Great Lakes, Canada... miwinebarrel 734.398.2028 We now also provide... Custom Stainless Steel Tanks! on this topic, but these are books that I have used most frequently. Laboratory location and design When designing the winery building or planting the vineyard, remember to think about your laboratory. Resist the tempta- tion to squeeze the lab into a corner so you don't have to have a separate room, as this is a sure recipe for the laboratory to be more of a nuisance than an asset. The laboratory is where many of the most im- portant decisions in winemaking occur, as well as other important tasks such as new product development and final blending trials. While there are laboratory tasks that require separation from the main winery or vineyard areas, the lab must be convenient to those areas. A laboratory needs its own dedicated space for functional reasons. It has ventilation requirements similar to those of the bottling room, as these two rooms function best when drawing air filtered from the outside into the winery building. Airflow should be separated either via sanitary filters or using an Your partner: the commercial wine lab W inery laboratories need a partner to help them through difficult decisions in the winemaking process, and the commercial wine laboratory has a definite place in the running of a high-quality wine- or grape-production company. It isn't a question of if you will use one of these valuable partners in your grape and wine production, but when and how often. I use them when they have equipment that I don't have and also to validate my own work and that of my staff. Look for a commercial lab that 1) is close to your winery, 2) can provide you with results in a timely manner, and 3) can give results that you are certain to be correct. A commercial lab close to your winery will save money because you can send samples via UPS ground and know that most often they will arrive the next day. However, the clos- est may not be the best, so look carefully and verify. Commercial wine laboratories are within one-day UPS reach in most wine regions of the country. If you are new to the wine business, these laboratories will be helpful as you learn to do your own tests. Try more than one laboratory while doing this, because there is a natural variability in any one wine sample. You need multiple results so you can see what the variability can be from one analysis to another. That will give you some param- eters on your own variability. When doing this type of validation, it is key to prepare the samples so they are uniform and shipped at the same time. It is important to build a working relationship with the laboratory. They see a wide range of problems and can be of great assistance in helping you solve problems when they arise. R.C.