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54 WINES&VINES October 2015 WINEMAKING TECHNICAL SPOTLIGHT www.walterjelly.com 608.831.1405 whj wine print.indd 1 2/6/13 5:59:47 PM SERVING THE WINE INDUSTRY FOR OVER 20 YEARS! Contact info Ph: 201-599-0909 Fax: 201-599-9888 Web Page www.labelsolutions.net East Coast 151 W Passaic St, 2nd Fl Rochelle Park, NJ 07662 West Coast 854 18th Street #3 Santa Monica, CA 90403 We provide our customers with what they need not what we have to sell We are an independent solutions provider for pressure sensitive labels. We research your requirements and find the perfect solution. We match your design, printing process, stock, delivery schedule and manufacture to your needs. but also have a different texture on the palate." The winery uses barrels from mostly French coopers and has several dozen puncheons, which Fiorentini said she often stands up on their heads to use as small open-top fermentors. "Syrah, Tempranillo, Petite Sirah and Mourvèdre do well in those type of fermentations; the wines are softened and nicely extracted, but you do have to be careful," she said. The larger oak vessels also help add soft tannins and round the palate of the wines without compromising freshness, Fioren- tini said, adding that Epoch has begun to use more of the larger hogshead barrels. Fiorentini and Turrone said they use Tonnellerie Sylvain, Ton- nellerie Meyrieux, Ermitage-Ber- thomieu Tonnellerie, Tonnellerie Boutes, Tonnellerie Vincent Dar- najou and Tonnellerie Taransaud. "We love Taransaud, actually," Turrone said, "which surprises people because it's more of a Bor- deaux cooperage. But it seems to work really well with Tempranillo and Syrah." An in-house lab allows for most wine analysis, but the winery also works with Baker Wine & Grape Analysis, ETS Laboratories and Vinquiry. Once ready, mobile providers SLO Bottling and Bottle- meister fill Saverglass bottles with the wine and seal them with corks from Scott Laboratories—except for the Epoch rosé, which is pack- aged with an Amcor screwcap. The name Epoch comes from the owners' background as geolo- gists but also takes into account how the new winery follows other, distinct periods of viticulture and winemaking including the historic York Mountain Winery and Pa- derewski's time in Paso Robles. Like the different layers of a soil profile, each period is distinct yet connected by the same place. Without Avian Control we would clearly need to net our vineyard. Avian Control allows us to get our grapes to full ripeness. Providing us the flexibility to leaf pull and hedge right up to the very end. —Jack Tomasello, Tomasello Winery, Inc. Proven Effective. Endorsed by Thousands of Growers. Invest in your grapes... not expensive netting! Liquid Bird Repellent Call Today For More Information 888-707-4355 Sales@AvianControl.com www.AvianControl.com Drive Birds Away from Barns, Packing Sheds and other structures. Now Approved in California For Vineyards, Wine and Table Grapes EPOCH'S BLENDING STRATEGY AND PROCESS The winemaking team at Epoch Estate Wines conducts regular and extensive tasting sessions throughout the year with the goal of assembling the winery's flagship Rhône blends. Here, winemaker Jordan Fiorentini discusses how the team assembles the blends. "T he idea of what blend a particular pick of fruit might make is on my mind from the moment I make a picking decision. This is most easily explained by a cofermenta- tion lot: If we put Syrah, Grenache and Petite Sirah together—as we try to every year—if the grapes are ripe at the same time, the wine will hopefully be the base for our Ingenuity blend. "Our associate winemaker, Peter Turrone, and I taste all wines on a weekly and then monthly basis as they progress through malolactic (fermentation) to aging. By the time we sit down to determine blends (about springtime, after the harvest season the year before), we know the wines' personalities quite well. When we actually want to figure out a blend, we move from the smaller blends to the bigger ones. We create a small "base" blend that we think is a great starting point and then through blind tastings try to add to the blend to make it better. If it isn't better, we don't move forward with the blend. We taste on so many different days, different times of day and revisit blends a lot before actually mak- ing the blend in the cellar. I have tested this model, and it ensures we are making the best blend choice. "Sometimes we choose not to blend at all if we feel the wines are too delicate to be moved prior to bottling. Luckily, we aren't forced to use all our wines in our blends, so we do bulk out what- ever doesn't fit annually."