Issue link: http://winesandvines.uberflip.com/i/830382
WINEMAKING TECHNICAL SPOTLIGHT 42 WINES&VINES June 2017 and a cellar worker. With the sorter, staffing for receiving and processing has been reduced to a forklift driver and second worker watching the equipment, allowing Delivert to process 4 to 5 tons per hour. Freed from hand-sorting berries, the interns can start pumpovers earlier, and everyone's day is shorter and easier. Destemmed and sorted berries are trans- ferred to tanks with a Wagner monoblock pump. White wine grapes are pressed with one of two Europress bladder presses, depending on the size of the lot, and then transferred to tanks. Delivert inoculates to begin fermentation and then manages ferments with either pumpovers or manual punchdowns. All of the Pinot ferments in open-top tanks, but Delivert said he may also put Petit Verdot and Malbec in the tanks, and those fermentations are managed with firehose pumpovers. Waitte said even though each tank is equipped with hot and cold glycol, and the crush pad has some cutting-edge equipment such as the optical sorter, Brown wanted the winery to be run with hands-on winemaking. Each pumpover is set up individually, so some- one is smelling, tasting and looking at the fer- mentation. Delivert and his team use Innovint winemaking software to track and manage production, but all of the winemaking is still done by hand. The crush pad is located in what had been a covered riding arena and is surrounded by open- and closed- top tanks.