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TECHNICAL SPOTLIGHT WINEMAKING April 2016 WINES&VINES 53 Focused on Sonoma County Comstock Ferris said the concept of the Com- stock Wines brand is to make wine with va- rieties that demonstrate the best of Sonoma County's many appellations. The family vine- yard in Dry Creek Valley is a source of Cab- ernet Sauvignon and Sauvignon Blanc. Pinot Noir and Chardonnay come from the Sonoma Coast and Russian River Valley. More Caber- net Sauvignon is harvested from Alexander Valley, and Zinfandel comes from Dry Creek Valley and other areas. The Comstocks also purchase Viognier from the Russian River Valley and are considering adding Syrah and Grenache. About 30% of the brand's total production is from the family vineyard. "Comstock is all direct to consumer (DtC). We're trying to grow the production along with the clientele, so we're not sitting on vintages and people don't know who we are yet," Comstock Ferris said. "We're gauging our production growth on our marketing and club membership." Working with so many different grape va- rieties requires a flexible crush pad setup and lots of options in the fermentation cellar. Russi said he was glad to join the project early, when he could help with the design process. "That was the cool thing; I was brought on when we had plans but we could change them, things like we need more electricity here, another water station there and maybe this room needs to be a little bit bigger," he said. "I got to have a big say in a lot of that, and the flow was perfect this year." Russi joined Comstock after five years as winemaker at Thomas George Estates and eight years as winemaker at Christopher Creek Winery (both in the Russian River Val- ley). The Comstocks sought him out for his experience with premium winemaking and because he's an expert on Sonoma County's vineyards. "Chris has spent a lot of time sourcing the vineyards we wanted to work with for the varietals we wanted to produce," Comstock Ferris said. The crush pad is located on the far side of the winery, opposite the main entrance and tasting room. Most of the equipment came from Healdsburg, Calif.-based Carlsen & Associates and P&L Specialties in Santa Rosa, Calif. Grapes are dumped into an incline con- veyor that empties onto a vibratory sorting table where a crew of about six workers hand sort the clusters that fall into a Puleo Vega 10 destemmer. "It's somewhat of a slow process. We can speed it up if we want, but the way we were doing it this year was take our time," Russi said. "We were doing about a ton, maybe a ton and a half per hour." The sorted and destemmed grapes are ei- ther dumped into open-top tanks with a fork- lift and bin dumper or moved with a Waukesha must pump directly into closed-top tanks. The 2015 harvest proved to be light, so Russi said he fermented everything in open- top tanks. In the future, he said he'll likely ferment Pinot Noir and Zinfandel in open- tops and put the Bordeaux varieties in closed-top tanks. Flexible winemaking The winemaker said he likes to ferment Zin- fandel in open-tops with a mix of punchdowns and pumpovers to help build mouthfeel and structure. Part of his winemaking philosophy at Comstock, however, is to change up the process depending on variety and vineyard source. "That's part of the concept, too. We're trying not to be a rusty winemaker or winery, making everything the same style. We're changing it up." Comstock Ferris said the winery currently has Zinfandel wines from the AVAs of Rock- pile, Russian River Valley (Russi's own vine- yard, which is more than 100 years old) and Dry Creek Valley. "We have a pretty nice little Zin lineup," she said. "All handled completely different, everything is small-lot production with attention to detail." Each tank is equipped with hot and cold glycol, and a TankNet system provides remote temperature control and monitoring. "We're able to adjust temperatures within each of these rooms as well as for each tank remotely from a phone," Russi said. "With TankNet, if it is in the middle of the night and something gets outrageously hot or too cold, an alarm goes off on my phone. It wakes me up at home, and I can make that adjustment there." KEY POINTS Equipped for an array of grape varieties, Comstock Wines' new winery is designed to support an estate program as well as custom-crush clients. The barrel-storage area features three separate rooms with independent temperature control. A TankNet system provides remote temperature monitoring and control for all of the winery's tanks. Winemaker Chris Russi plans to move his 5- to 8-ton closed-top fermentation tanks to the center of the room, where they will be flanked by open-top tanks. Comstock Wines has two concrete eggs from Sonoma Cast Stone for white wine fermentations.