Issue link: http://winesandvines.uberflip.com/i/63937
WINEMAKING and some stainless steel-aged wine is des- tined for Silver, while the barrel-aged wine is destined for Mer Soleil, which is aged in wood for 12-14 months. By doing this we have three different flavors of wine that all came from the same vineyards. This makes for some fun blending sessions. W&V: Why use concrete? Has concrete presented any challenges? Wagner: We have 25 concrete tanks. Twenty-three are large, oval-shaped tanks, and the other two are egg-shaped. All of the tanks are produced by a company called Nomblot. The oval tanks are the largest size that will fit in a shipping container. We had to take this into ac- count, as the tanks are manufactured and shipped from a small village in Burgundy. The two egg-shaped tanks are more visu- ally appealing but are quite a bit smaller than the oval tanks. Both styles of tank are unlined, meaning the wine is able to breathe, as it does in a barrel. I believe the result of this micro-oxida- tion helps the wine taste more mature at a younger age, which allows us to bottle it sooner and capture the youthful charac- ter of a young wine. Another interesting thing is all of these tanks tend to stir themselves. Because of the temperature View video in the Wines & Vines Digital Edition. Charlie Wagner discusses making Silver, an unoaked Chardonnay that is packaged in a ceramic bottle. difference between the top and bottom of the tanks, there is a natural convection that occurs. This is especially true with tanks that are stored outside due to the top of the tank being exposed to the sun. All tanks have cooling coils inside and are temperature-controlled. We age the wine in concrete for a few months and are sure to rack out of the tanks and into stainless early in the year to avoid any changes for the worse. We have found that if we age the wine too long in the concrete tanks, the perception of acid changes, and the wine begins to form a sort of flat and granular quality. This process alone took a lot of trial and error. sun exposure afforded to the large, oval- shaped concrete tanks stored outside causes a natural convection that stirs the wine. A resident of the Santa Cruz Mountains, Laurie Daniel has been a journalist for more than 25 years. She has been writing about wine for publications for nearly 15 years and has been a Wines & Vines contributor since 2006. PROUD PARTNER OF MER SOLEIL For more than 30 years Phoenix Packaging has designed and introduced new concepts to the wine industry. We work to produce distinctive, unique, and recognizable packaging. BE Creative, BE Bold, BE Different!!!! BUILD YOUR BRAND using what YOU think will be the PERFECT PACKAGE. DON'T be limited by someone's catalogue or stock. WWW.PHOENIXPACKAGING.COM Telephone: 514-487-6660 / 800-661-6481 YOUR ONLY SOURCE FOR CERAMIC BOTTLES!!! Wines & Vines MAY 2012 55