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WINEMAKING More complex testing such as initial YAN assessment, VA, etc., gets done through either Vinquiry or ETS. Then there are the small matters of water and power. Like many spots in the Napa Agricultural Preserve, the Tres Sab- ores site is not the kind of place you just plug into the local utilities and get going. Water comes from a well and flows into concrete storage tanks; some equipment runs on propane, and instead of paying Pacific Gas & Electric a hundred grand to run three-phase power onto the property, Johnson uses a Phase Technologies phase converter to provide the current her ma- chinery requires. Johnson seems more attached to some of her miscellaneous equipment—the "Fire and Ice" chiller, the aquarium heat- ers that can be plunged into bins, the rolls of reflective insulation from the hardware store that help things warm or cool and the impressive array of punch-down tools and scrubbing brushes—than to the big-footprint gear. It's a common attitude among small-production, hands-on wine- makers: Their favorite winery gizmos are the ones they bought at OSH or nailed together themselves. Bottling and marketing For bottling, Johnson uses a mobile line from Mill Creek Mobile Bottling Services. For the ¿Por qué no? blend (at 2,000 cases the largest single production), she brings in tanker trucks for the final blending and bottling. Bottles come from Global Package, capsules from Ramondin and corks from Ganau. The ¿Por qué no? label design is indeed based on a cocktail napkin Johnson came across during a trip to Oaxaca; the circular logo on the basic Tres Sabores label traces back to pictures of pre-Columbian bowls in Ecuador; the almost Escher-like vanishing pint image on the Perspective Cabernet Sauvignon comes from an 1880s lithograph she found at a flea market in London. Design help has come from Kathryn Havens, Patti Wessman and Jim Moon Designs. The Cabernet label gets printed by Land- mark Label, many others come through Ben Franklin Press and Johnson also has used CCL Label in Portland, Ore. The wines are a notch or two differ- ent from the mainstream Napa offerings: Tres Sabores Zins run slightly lower in alcohol than the current fashion; the Cabernet Sauvignon is more charming than muscular, and the flagship ¿Por qué no? is a one-of-a-kind blend of Zinfandel, Petite Sirah, Cabernet Sauvignon and Petit Verdot. Consequently, Johnson can't sell her wines just because "Napa" or "Ruth- erford" are on the labels. She once tried storming Manhattan by riding around town with a local sales rep and some samples on a Vespa. Not surpris- ingly, the real answer to how she sells her wines is direct to consumer: More than half of sales are through a wine club, web sales and tasting appointments. Like most winer- ies this size, Tres Sabores has trouble getting the attention of distributors, but Johnson does work with some California brokers. Case goods are stored at the Wine Ser- vice Co-op in St. Helena, where Johnson is confident her inventory is in good hands. Through Nexternal software, orders come into Tres Sabores, get cleared through ShipCompliant and get sent out by the Wine Service Co-op. Johnson relies heavily on the temperature forecast maps provided by ShipCompliant and the Wine Service Co-op in scheduling or holding back ship- ments during problematic weather. In an email follow-up to my visit to Tres Sabores, Johnson mentioned one other small "necessity" she deems cru- cial for Tres Sabores' success: a bottle of Schramsberg Crémant for toasting the harvest every year. << Latest wine industry news << Original headline every weekday << Live reader comments << Wine Industry Data Center << Archive search << Buyer's Guide Online NEWS SITE WWW.WINESANDVINES.COM WINES & VINES SEPTEMBER 2012 51