Issue link: http://winesandvines.uberflip.com/i/766392
WINEMAKING TECHNICAL SPOTLIGHT 80 WINES&VINES January 2017 tion and road to make it easier for them and their employees to access a notoriously busy part of Highway 12. The partners didn't want or need such a large winery permit, which had been secured from Sonoma County in 1999 by Mobius Painter LLC, a venture that never even broke ground on a planned winery. Bordigioni and Jensen went to county of- ficials and tried to adjust the winery permit for a much smaller operation, but the county re- fused to change the permit, and so the partners ended up selling the property to Reynoso. He said the new four-way intersection will help everyone in that particular stretch of So- noma Valley. Bordigioni is slowly putting to- gether a 5,000-case winery on his property for his wine brand but is still storing barrels at nearby Deerfield Ranch Winery. Once Sugarloaf is finished, Du Preez said the owners have no plans to launch a Sugarloaf brand. The winery was planned purely as a custom-crush facility, but clients will be able to do some direct-to-consumer business. The winery will feature space that clients can use (at an additional cost) for entertaining small groups of customers or members of the trade and media. A commercial-grade kitchen can also be used for catering, and so clients could also host their own small events. A cooperative tasting room is still an option too, although Du Preez said the idea is not make Sugarloaf a new stop for tour buses. Winery development and the perceived de- mands on the local infrastructure from wine tourism is still something of a sore subject in Sonoma County. The owners of Sugarloaf are particularly sensitive to being good neighbors because across the highway from the winery is a large senior housing development. A commercial kitchen, permission for 20 winery events per year and the tasting room are all tied to the original permit. How they will be used really depends on what the clients want and how that fits with the owners' plan to keep Sugarloaf a quiet, low-profile operation. In front of the winery is an open field that will be planted with 6 acres of vines in a part- nership with Novavine. While the 2016 harvest may have been a hectic, stressful rush, Du Preez said it also af- forded him a chance to see how he could tweak the original design to make for a more efficient winery. For example, a space that had been planned to remain a gravel parking lot will instead be paved and used as the grape bin storage and prep area. The additional concrete will reduce forklift drive times on the crush pad by a few minutes and over the course of a long harvest day, that will end up saving a substantial amount of time. "As tough as it was this harvest working in an unfinished winery, it was almost a blessing in disguise." Barrel filling, racking and washing takes place in a work room separate from the main barrel-storage area. This space can also accommodate a bottling line. The property is permitted for 12,000 square feet of caves, a commercial kitchen and total wine production of 125,000 cases per year. Construction for the custom-crush winery project began in September 2015.