Wines & Vines

winemaking Technical spoTlighT 32 Wines&Vines March 2015 the elements during harvest. Ackerman said all of the grapes are picked by hand, generally in the cool hours before dawn. Ferrari-Carano owns more than 1,700 acres of vineyards, and all are managed through the com- pany's own viticulture team headed up by director of vineyard operations Steve Domenichelli. During harvest, the vineyard crews erect sorting stations in the field, where the grapes undergo a thorough sorting. Field sorting, followed by machine sorting Harvested grapes are delivered in half-ton MacroBins via tractors or flatbed trucks directly from the vineyard. A forklift operator dumps the bins into a stainless steel hopper that feeds an escala- tor, which leads to a Pellenc Selec- tiv' Process Winery destemmer and sorter. Ackerman said the Pel- lenc represents a major invest- ment in ensuring grape quality and allows for the fermentation of clean, destemmed whole berries. "Once you get it dialed in, it's like black marbles," she said of the processed grapes and noted she rarely does any hand sorting on the crush pad. Destemmed and sorted grapes fall from the Pellenc into half-ton bins. The bins are moved by fork- lift to the nearby fermentation room and dumped into tanks with a bin dumper. The fermentation cellar contains 26 open-top Westec tanks that range in capacity from 2 tons to 6 tons. The building is accessible via several large, roll-up doors and offers plenty of room for forklifts. All of the larger tanks are equipped with cooling jackets, and the must undergoes a three- day cold soak. Ackerman said she prefers to ferment with the tanks set around 75° F to ensure the total tank volume temperature is below 90° F. Fermentation is initi- ated by inoculating with yeast. She said the improved grape- processing technology is the big- gest change to the winemaking style at Lazy Creek. The whole- berry fermentations yield a more expressive, fruity Pinot that is still held in balance by the grapes' abundant tannins. Because she's working with whole berries, Ack- erman said she's experimented with adding back a portion of the grape stems, but in the cool An- derson Valley the stems are typi- cally too green. "I just found that they don't really need it," she said of the Lazy Creek Pinots. "If any- thing, we're managing tannin up here and dealing with it through blending." The fermentation tanks are ar- ranged in two long rows separated by a catwalk, which provides ac- cess to each of the tanks for punch downs. Each tank receives a punch down between one and three times per day, with a pneumatic Lazy Creek does all bottling with a GAI Monobloc filler and labeler/capsuler. (707) 431–9342 westectank.com

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