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WINEMAKING keeps foaming down. All the Pinot bins get an addition of oak chips—Custom Cooperage wood from Innerstave, which Stutz says helps with green tannins and pyrazine character, covering it up if not actually removing it. Wild and commercial yeasts compete Rehydrated commercial yeast is layered on top of the bins but not mixed in, allowing any yeasts brought in from the vineyard to do their work down lower in the bin. Stutz thinks the wild yeasts are more suited to cooler temperatures, so they have a few days to perform before the Saccharomyces on top goes into high gear. Yeast strains include RC-212, Montrachet, Fermirouge, L2056 and Zymaflore RB2. Strains are matched with characteristics of the fruit from the various vineyards, and when quantities permit, multiple bins are inoculated with multiple yeasts in hopes of layering more complexity. Yeast nutrients are only added when fermentations smell of sluggishness or with certain strains that have proven to have high nutritional requirements. In general, Stutz avoids adding nutrients so that by the time the fermentation is complete, the wine is a "nutrient desert" with no fuel left for spoilage organisms. Punch downs begin four or five days after the top-only yeast additions, and fermentation temperatures rise to about 85ºF. If a certain bin needs to be cooled down, a glycol cooling plate can be lowered into the must to bring it down. The alcoholic fermentations are generally completed within a week after punch downs start. Stutz and Mirassou let the wine sit, without a gas blanket, and taste each bin every day as it continues to develop texture, length, and depth. Pressing may only occur when the cap falls, or even some days later. When Stutz and Mirassou started producing La Rochelle in this facility, standard practice was to press everything at zero Brix; La Rochelle's bin-by-bin approach has changed that framework. With no sulfur at the crusher and no gas during the somewhat extended maceration, the grapes and wine are somewhat exposed, but spoilage has never been a problem. "We do keep the animal life out of the bins," Stutz jokes, "but sometimes I consider the La Rochelle style of winemaking a major act of faith." Since the grapes have been through both a cold soak and some post-fermentation TECHNICAL REVIEW maceration, a light pressing is all that's required. Free run and press fractions are combined, and the wines go to barrel and are inoculated with Viniflora malolactic culture. Again, no special nutrients are added. Malolactic fermentations take their time, sometimes into February. Once the malo is complete, barrels get their first taste of sulfur, a 50-ppm addition. At this point the barrels from a particular lot are racked into a tank, blended together and racked back into barrels. Barrels come from a number of suppliers: Billon, Cadus and Damy barrels from the Bouchard Cooperages, François Frères, Nadalié, Radoux and Remond. Like yeast strains, barrel sources are matched with vineyards, and a mix of barrels—like the multiple yeast strains, aims for complexity. A small amount of American oak in hybrid barrels— Appalachian oak staves, French oak heads—from Radoux and Nadalié is used for Pinot Meunier and one Pinot Noir vineyard. La Rochelle's Pinot Noirs get between 30% and 50% new oak and are aged 16 to 20 months. The wines aren't fined or filtered before bottling, though if a particular barrel has problems, Stutz may choose to filter. INNOVATIVE SOLUTIONS QSEE US AT UNIFIED, BOOTH #1210 54 Wines & Vines JAnUARY 2012 Wes_WV-Jan-Feb2012.indd 1 Westec ad 1/2 page horizontal 4 color ad — Wine Business Monthly Jan 2012 issue. 12/2/11 12:12 AM