Issue link: http://winesandvines.uberflip.com/i/543749
August 2015 WINES&VINES 51 TECHNICAL SPOTLIGHT WINEMAKING managed by pumpovers to get oxygen into the must. Vierra places stainless steel screens on the interior ends of the tank-rack- ing valves so she can send just juice over the cap via an air pump. For smaller fermentations in open bins, the juice is pumped up through a stainless steel screen tube and spread over the cap. Once fermentation is complete, the wines age in wide variety of barrels. Vierra said she likes using Tonnellerie Taransaud puncheons for Rhône variety wines and Fran- cois Freres barrels for the Derby Pinot Noir, which is made with grapes from the Derbyshire vine- yard. Other coopers Vierra uses are Tonnellerie Meyrieux, Ermitage- Berthomieu Tonnellerie and Ton- nellerie Sirugue. The base of the building's tower is used as a storage space for mis- cellaneous winemaking equip- ment, and the winemaking staff has taken advantage of the extra vertical space to rig up a unique hose-storage system. Each hose is suspended with a loop of rope that is stretched over a metal bar at the top of the tower and then tied to an eyelet set in a rail near the floor. When a worker needs a hose, he or she detaches the lower portion of the rope and lowers the hose to the ground. When a clean hose is put away for the day, the worker reattaches the hose to the rope and then hoists it up to dry. The top floor of the tower fea- tures a small hospitality area known as the Almond Room, which is ringed by windows that provide views of downtown Paso Robles. The tower room is used for wine club tastings and other special events. A large tasting room, open to the public, is housed in the bottom floor of the structure opposite the wine-pro- duction area. The white marble tasting bar and Art Deco design evokes a bar or malt shop counter from the 1920s or '30s. Back in the 1920s the tower was full of almonds, and the build- ing could process 500 tons of nuts in a day. The building was con- structed by the Paso Robles Al- mond Growers Association to serve as its main processing facility as well as a symbol of how the region had, at that time, become the "al- mond capital of the world." The boom was short lived, and just a decade later declining or- chard productivity and the Great Depression forced the almond as- sociation to sell the building to the Farmers Alliance, which processed wheat and other grains in the building until 1975. It's fitting that the structure has now been revitalized to pro- cess the crop that's fueling Paso Robles current growth: wine grapes. SUBSCRIBE ONLINE AND SAVE. Print + Digital Magazine 12 monthly issues a year for $28 winesandvines.com/subscribe Grapes are first field sorted by the winery's own vineyard teams and then receive a quick cluster sorting at the winery.