Issue link: http://winesandvines.uberflip.com/i/804714
TECHNICAL SPOTLIGHT WINEMAKING April 2017 WINES&VINES 57 area. When Wines & Vines visited the winery on a weekday in November, the tasting lounge was filling up soon after opening at 11 a.m., with visitors tasting wines at the bar and enjoy- ing glasses of wine at tables. Parsons has the same kind of setup in Aus- tin, and he's thinking of opening other tap rooms but in cities that aren't already steeped in wine culture. "We don't choose, as you can tell, traditional winegrowing states," he said. "We're definitely exploring that option, but it may not even be necessary if we can get the growth on shelves in the grocery chains. If that happens, then you can just do anything you want to do." Despite all the growth in cans and kegs, Parsons still operates a very hands-on boutique winery. Grapes are trucked in from vineyards throughout Colorado and unloaded onto either an elevated conveyor that serves as a sorting line or into an Armbruster ET-V 2500 vibrating hopper from Scott Laboratories. The hopper and a bin dumper are recent additions, and Parsons said they have been most welcome as he used to shovel all the grapes into the Rauch destemmer. Parsons bought his destemmer used, but Euro Machines USA is the company's U.S. distributor. The destemmed grapes are either collected into 1.5-ton bins or pumped directly to tanks. The bins are given regular punchdowns, and the tank fermentations are managed with pumpovers. Parsons was able to buy his tanks secondhand—and at quite a bargain, too. His larger, 3,000-gallon tanks had removable lids that he welded tight, and he said they've worked just fine. He'll put some of his Bordeaux varieties through extended maceration, and for that Parsons said he wraps up the bins in plastic and fills the headspace with argon gas. Most of the reds will age in neutral, French oak bar- rels. One unique challenge to making wine in Denver is the relatively lack of humidity. "It's so dry here, you have to rehydrate barrels every six weeks," he said. All of the barrels at the winery are neutral, and Parsons buys them through Premier Wine Cask. He keeps them clean and sanitized with a steam unit from Criveller Group. White wine grapes are pressed with a Della Toffola membrane press, which is also used for the reds. None of the reds are filtered, but Parsons will run the whites through a mem- brane filter prior to bottling. Infinite Monkey Theorem produces a Malbec, Cabernet Franc, Petit Sirah, Petit Verdot and Syrah. Parsons said his 2014 Syrah earned an 89 in Wine Spectator and a 90 in Wine Enthusiast. The winery partnered with Ball Corp. to develop its canned wine program, which has since been picked up by several national retailers.