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90 W i n e s & V i n e s n O V e M B e R 2 0 1 4 W I N E M A K I N G C hris Dowsett made his first wine in 1983, when he was in the 10th grade. It was 10 gallons of Gewurztraminer from his family's small vineyard in Oregon's Willamette Valley. The family had purchased the near-abandoned vineyard in the early 1980s, and Dowsett helped his father revitalize and expand it. Those experiences led him to study horticulture at Oregon State University. While earning his degree, Dowsett spent a year studying enology and viticulture in Australia at Roseworthy Agricultural College (now the University of Adelaide), where he worked in the school's winery and lab, making experimental wines for wineries such as Penfolds. After graduating from Oregon State in 1991, Dowsett worked for Robert Mondavi, Domaine Chandon, Schramsberg and Stonestreet in Northern California before return- ing to the Pacific Northwest for an assistant winemaker job at Canoe Ridge in Walla Walla, Wash. After stints at Latitude 46° and Artifex, he joined blends-focused Buty Winery in Walla Walla in 2009. In addition to being the winemaker at Buty, Dowsett has his own label, Dowsett Family Winery. Wines & Vines: You're using concrete fer- mentors for your white wines at Buty. What are the advantages and the draw- backs? Have you considered using con- crete for the reds? Chris Dowsett: We started using concrete tanks in 2009. Our plan was to ferment early-ripening Semillon in the tank and then move to Rhone red varieties later in the season. We were initially looking for something with thick-wall insulation simi- lar to barrels, but with the airtight sealing ability of steel. Looking at the brochures for the Nomblot tank that we chose, I was struck by how many of the European customers were from Burgundy, Chablis and even Champagne. I had assumed that most of the wineries would be producers of big, rustic Rhones or Spanish wines. The amount of delicate reds and whites being produced in these tanks was unexpected. Once we started using the tank on the Semillon, for our Buty Semillon-Sauvi- gnon-Muscadelle blend, we were amazed at how well suited for our white program it was. The tank we bought was cube- shaped. It has 6- to 8-inch-thick walls and a large, flat floor. The thick concrete almost sucks the heat out of the fermenta- tion, giving a nice, long, cool progression. This is very important to us in our white fermentations, because it helps to retain delicate aromas and keep the lees in sus- pension for a longer period of time. The flat floor of the cube also helps for sur lie aging. Instead of having to weekly, or biweekly, stir barrels of whites to sus- pend the yeast cells, the huge surface area of the floor gives a nice, shallow area of lees. The less stirring, the less oxygen intro- duced to the finished wine. We have also found that the concrete helps to pull tartrate crystals from the wines. We have never cold-stabilized our wines, and we bottle one of our whites in a clear bottle. Any limitation of tartrates forming in the bottle is helpful. Ulti- mately, we were so happy with the con- crete tank, we bought a second Nomblot tank in 2010 to use for our Conner Lee Vineyard Chardonnay. The drawbacks of concrete are fairly minor. Placing the tanks the first time required a very large forklift. Our bigger tank weighs almost 12,000 pounds empty. Cleaning is also difficult. We can Winemaker Interview Chris dowsett Walla Walla winery maximizes fermentors, filtration and The Rocks By Laurie Daniel Winemaker Chris Dowsett chooses vineyard sites that ripen at lower Brix to keep alcohol levels down without adding water. He also believes warmer fermentations help keep alcohol low.