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TECHNICAL SPOTLIGHT WINEMAKING December 2015 WINES&VINES 49 He worked two harvests in Burgundy and returned to the United States in 1992 to work at a start-up winery in Massachusetts. "I'm an East Coast person," Shaps told Wines & Vines, "but I wanted to be in Virginia, so I took a job as winemaker at Jefferson Vineyards in 1995. I started consulting and in 2000 created my own brand." By 2004, Shaps was back in France to start a boutique wine label with Michel Roucher- Sarrazin, his friend and boss, as partner. They formed Maison Shaps et Roucher-Sarrazin, which specialized in Chardonnays from Meur- sault and Pinot Noir from several Burgundy appellations. Shaps bought out his partner in 2012, changed the name to Maison Michael Shaps and continues to produce approximately 1,000 cases per year from some of Burgundy's best vineyard sites and premier cru appella- tions. He now goes to France about every other month to supervise wine production there, in addition to spending many mornings in Vir- ginia working with his French staff in Meur- sault over the phone. When Shaps started Virginia Wineworks in 2007, he and Stafford purchased the former Montdomaine Cellars property, a winery opened by Michael Bowles and a partner in 1981. The Bowles had leased the facility to Horton Vineyards in the 1990s, while Horton's winery was under construction, and the Mont- domaine facility then stood empty for 10 years until Virginia Wineworks took over the build- ing. Bowles still owns a 4-acre vineyard next to the winery that is planted with some of the oldest Chardonnay vines in Virginia. The first expansion of the Montdomaine building took place in 2010. A roof was built over the open crush pad area, and a driveway was created in a loop so that trucks could de- liver grapes or pick up wine more easily. Wine- works, however, was not the typical winery: The focus was on creating a better space for wine production, not for marketing. There were no facilities for wedding receptions or special events, no music festivals and no tasting room. Visitors who wanted to try Shaps' wines were ushered into the barrel room, where a plank was set up on two barrels as a tasting bar. As more people came to visit the winery, the tasting bar was expanded to six barrels topped with plywood, so that more tasters could be accommodated at one time. More changes took place in 2014. Shaps bought out his partner's share of Virginia Wine- works, and he now markets the winery as Mi- chael Shaps Wineworks. A new holding company, Michael Shaps Winery Management Group, was formed with Shaps as the majority partner. The other partners are Tayloe Dam- eron of Upper Shirley Vineyards in Charles City, Va., Francois Cousin of Brussels, Belgium, and Dean Andrews of Pippin Hill Farm & Vineyards in Charlottesville, Va. Shaps also merged his winery consulting business, KWC, into Michael Shaps Wineworks. The new Wineworks now offers full-service consulting packages for start-up and producing wineries that encompass every aspect from vineyard management and lab services to pro- duction staffing. To accommodate these changes, a $1 million expansion project was implemented to increase the production capac- ity by 50%, add a new office building and space for a tasting room. The building looks like what it is: a wine- production facility, not a fancy French chateau or Italian villa with elegant spaces for wine tasting events. Visitors and trucks loaded with grapes drive up the same gravel road toward a large covered space. Those interested in tast- ing wine take a left into a visitors' parking lot, WHEN 'RIPE' GRAPES ARE TOO LOW IN SUGAR I n Virginia, Mother Nature does not always deliver ripe grapes with a high enough level of sugar. A technique that some winemakers in the East are adapting to improve the Brix lev el is a variation on the appassimento process used in the Valpolicella region around Verona, Italy, for hundreds of years. In this process, the best clusters (those with absolutely no dam age to any berries) are placed on drying racks and put into a fruttaio where the temperature and humidity can be controlled. The color, flavor and aroma compounds concentrate as the grapes dehydrate over a period of two to six months. The process also facilitates the polymerization of tannins in the grapes, which gives the resulting dry wine a velvety texture and increases the potential for longer aging of the wine. At Michael Shaps Wineworks, the goal of grape dehydration is somewhat different. Shaps uses the process for two purposes: first, to concentrate the grapes to produce his dessert wine, which is more similar to the Italian Recioto, or sweeter wine, often produced along with the traditional appassimento wines that are dry. Second (and more frequently), Shaps uses the process to dehydrate grapes—not for months, but for days. Sugar levels in other wise fully ripe Virginia grapes can be in the range of 20°22° Brix, and in two to six days, he can raise the sugar content to 28° or 29° Brix. Bunches of grapes destined for this process arrive at the winery in lugs without any MOG, and each lug weighs only about 14 pounds. These grapes do not go through the crusher/destemmer. For this drying process, Shaps acquired two tobaccocuring "barns" that look like metal storage sheds and placed them just beyond the crush pad. Behind each unit are propane fueled burners that heat air to 120° F; fans blow the air through metal grates on the floor and up through the lugs containing the grapes. In some cases, part of a grape lot will be "dried" to get to a higher Brix number and then put back into the fermentation of the rest of the lot to raise the overall sugar level and improve aromas and flavors. Each harvest, Wine works will process between 15 and 20 tons of grapes in the drying sheds. The appassimento process used to dehydrate grapes at Michael Shaps Wineworks takes place in these two tobacco-curing 'barns' located just beyond the crush pad.