Issue link: http://winesandvines.uberflip.com/i/830382
June 2017 WINES&VINES 41 agreed and soon went to county o f f i c i a l s w i t h p l a n s f o r a 60,000-gallon (or 28,000-case) winery to be built beneath the ex- pansive roof of the covered riding area. "Because of Thomas coming in and the custom-crush clients, I was able to basically finance a big- ger winery and also with better toys," Waitte said. "The day we opened we were packed, and we have been ever since." The winery was designed with an eye more toward functionality than aesthetics. Situated off of Tubbs Lane, the tanks and crush pad are on the eastern half of the 15,000-square-foot structure with two sets of doors that lead to bar- rel rooms that can be set to differ- ent temperatures. The roof of the winery is the only original part of the structure remaining. "I gave full license when I was building the winery to Thomas and said, 'Build this as if it were your win- ery,'" Waitte said. "I'm paying for it, so I have veto power, but what I found was that Thomas built a winery entirely for functionality not for aesthetics." The crush pad is located at the center of the ring of tanks set back-to-back with a catwalk run- ning between them. Produced by Santa Rosa Stainless Steel, the tanks range in size from little more than 3 tons to nearly 13 tons in capacity. "Because of our cus- tom-crush clientele and all the different fruits coming in—and because we get a lot of small lots coming in, like 2-ton and 3-ton lots—we wanted to treat those smaller lots with the same integ- rity as the bigger lots," he said. In 2012, Frederic Delivert joined Tamber Bey as winemaker, and Brown is the director of winemaking. Grapes arrive at the winery in half-ton bins and are unloaded in a large parking area in front of the tasting room. After getting weighed on a scale, bins are dumped by a forklift into a Bu- cher Vaslin TR elevated conveyor that transfers clusters to an Oscil- lys destemmer also produced by Bucher Vaslin. When working with Pinot Noir, Delivert said the destemmed berries are usually collected in bins and then dumped with a forklift into one of a dozen open- top tanks. Other varieties such as Cabernet Sauvignon will receive another round of sorting with a Vitisort machine by Key Technol- ogy. The optical sorter was new for the 2016 harvest, and Delivert said it has already started to pay for itself in reducing overtime hours. "To me, it's true that this is the only way to sort," he said. " O v e r a l l i t ' s a h u g e improvement." The optical sorter replaced a vibratory shaker table that had been staffed by the harvest interns TECHNICAL SPOTLIGHT WINEMAKING InnerstaveBarrelAd12.27.16Fin.pdf 1 12/27/16 10:31 AM The winery is set on 22 acres, and the buildings were originally designed by architect Howard Backen.