76 WINES&VINES September 2015
GRAPEGROWING WINE EAST
of 3.5-3.6. Grüner crop yields av-
erage 4 to 5 tons per acre.
All the fruit is hand picked, de-
stemmed and crushed immedi-
ately. No press fractions are
employed, as the juice goes into
tanks without any addition of sul-
fur. "We're in the brown juice
club," said Troxell, who identifies
this technique as "hyper-oxida-
tion." She then adds Novozymes
Vi n o C l e a r C l a s s i c e n z y m e s
sourced from Gusmer Enterprises
and lets the chilled juice sit in tank
for a day. Due to Grüner's high
protein level, Sarah Troxell's next
step is to avoid protein instability.
She calls the process "groaner" for
the difficulty of adding a huge
amount of bentonite to the juice:
400 grams/hectoliter. This tech-
nique was adopted after many of
the Troxells' Austrian friends con-
vinced them of the merit of such
an addition. However, in 2014
they did not employ flotation
(pumping air into the juice to
cause the gelatinous solids to rise
