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WINEMAKING TECHNICAL SPOTLIGHT 52 WINES&VINES September 2015 just on a larger scale. And while Rack & Riddle co- owner Rebecca Faust does have a sparkling wine label sold from a tasting room at the Geyserville facility, the large tanks are re- served for major winery clients. Breathless sparkling Faust's line of sparklers, Breathless Wines, is a joint operation with her two sisters: Sharon Cohn and Cynthia Faust. The trio launched Breathless in 2011, and the wines have won awards at the Los An- geles International Wine Com- petition and the San Francisco Chronicle Wine Competition. The Breathless lineup includes a Brut ($25), Blanc de Noirs and Brut Rosé (both $32 per bottle). Gadd-Coster, who is also the winemaker for Breathless, says she has ideas going into harvest about which lots will be included in the label's final blends. "That has evolved over time as we have pinned down fruit sources," she explained. "So now I know there are particular blocks that might be better, and then I have a bit of room to look and say, 'This might be better for this program," and pick and choose a little bit." Rack & Riddle sources grapes from vineyards in California's Men- docino and Sonoma counties. Tools of the trade Rack & Riddle's Healdsburg loca- tion is home to one tirage line, one disgorging line and two bottling lines—one for still wines, one for sparkling. The company moved its Grilliat (now TDD Grilliat Ma- chines) disgorging/dosing ma- chine from Hopland as part of the move, and Gadd-Coster says it's her favorite piece of equipment at the winery because of its multiple functions. The bottles "enter after they've been disgorged and go around three times with a different head," she explained. "When it goes around the first time it takes a little bit of wine out. The second time around, the bottle gets a little bit of dose (liqueur de tirage, or yeast and sugar), and the third time around it gets filled up to that 750ml capacity." The winery also uses a cloud- based system that allows clients to track their wines through the various stages of production. Gadd-Coster said they selected the VINx2 software for winemak- ing because it was the option best suited to sparkling winemaking. "There are a lot of good pro- grams, but this particular company had worked with some sparkling houses in Australia, so they were already versed in what was needed and how to track that," she said. "That is a benefit that is really nice for clients: to be able to track along and also be able to oversee and get work done." The process of aging Real-time monitoring of wine is something that's on the minds of Rack & Riddle staff in many ways. While bottles of sparkling don't age for as long as most red table wines, they are also not as quick to market as other pale-hued wines such as Sauvignon Blanc—at least not when created with the méthode Champenoise style, which Rack & Riddle employs for its sparklers. Most sparkling wines finish secondary fermentation around six months after crush, but that doesn't mean they're ready for the public. "It hasn't quite gotten its act together," Gadd-Coster said. "It's definitely a fresh wine at that point, but it's also kind of a jumbled wine," she continued. "If you can give it even another six months' worth of time, a lot of that integration is starting to take place." Co-owner Lundquist agrees. "Once it gets over 12 months or 15 months or 16 months, it be- comes more elegant and shows characteristics that everyone de- sires," he told Wines & Vines. But while aging sparkling wines in bottle ultimately adds to the wines' value, it is not without expense to Rack & Riddle. "It's not active revenue-generating space," co-owner Lundquist said of case storage. "The biggest consideration we've had to make is cooling space to age the sparkling wine," he ex- plained, adding that at any given time the winery is storing 1.5 vin- tages for most of its clients. Acquiring yet another location is probably inevitable, though Lundquist said he would like to keep it as close as possible. Grape to bottle Another change Lundquist antici- pates is growing interest from winemakers looking to manage grape-to-bottle sparkling pro- grams. Wineries that started off purchasing Brut shiners from Rack & Riddle have expressed interest in making sparkling from their own vineyard sources— some of them sparkling Syrah and Zinfandel. "We probably wouldn't have had those requests three or four years ago," said Lundquist, who maintains that product diversity is good for business. "We certainly wanted to have some sort of a bal- ance between still and sparkling, so if one of these categories suf- fered a downturn we would have the other to prop up." Meanwhile, sales of sparkling wine have skyrocketed in recent years and show no signs of slow- ing down. According to the Inter- national Organisation of Vine and Wine, sparkling production in the United States has increased by 22% since 2002. And while overall U.S. wine sales grew just 0.3% in volume during 2014, according to Impact Databank, sparkling wine sales jumped 3%. With its new facilities and the ability to increase production for a growing clientele, Rack & Riddle is ready to take its business to the next level. "It's like any winery," Gadd- Coster said, "but we are providing the winery." "It's like any winery, but we are providing the winery." —Penny Gadd-Coster The outdoor crush pad in Geyserville, Calif., is one level below the street, so grapes dumped into the roadside hopper are quickly destemmed and crushed. Rack & Riddle has two bottling lines: One for still wines and one for sparkling.