Issue link: http://winesandvines.uberflip.com/i/83237
WINEMAKING TECHNICAL REVIEW a custom-built mobile sorting table on wheels, where the good fruit is separated from the chaff. With all of its vineyard sources somewhere under the sustain- able umbrella, Dragonette doesn't have the mobile rig, but it does extensive sorting in the field at every transfer point—from vines to small bins to larger bins. Almost all the time this means that fruit for both wineries comes to their shared cellar and goes straight to the destemmer. In exceptional cases such as the 2010 Syrah that came full of shot berries, sorting equipment from friendly neighbor wineries gets pressed into service. The crushing capability of the Diemme destemmer-crusher Fermentation gets under way in open-top bins at the winery. of grape and wine processing in one place. Designing the space this way meant no one had to retrofit the whole facility with drains and sloping floors and such; it also helps that both opera- tions do essentially all of their sorting in the field rather than tables on the non-existent crush pad. The Ampelos estate vineyard a few miles away is 25 acres planted to about 40,000 vines—mostly various clones of Pinot Noir plus some Syrah and Grenache. The vineyard received both organic and Biodynamic certification in 2009. At harvest time, one crew makes a first pass to cut off unripe or rotted clusters, then a second pass picks into small bins, which are brought to doesn't get much use at the winery, but the destemming function earns its pay. None of Dragonette's red fruit gets crushed; it's merely destemmed, with whole berries going into the fermentors. Ampelos crushes only the purchased Syrah that goes into its rosé, letting it macerate before being fully pressed, and all the juice is fermented (not the saignée method.) All the whites are whole-clus- ter pressed, as are the Grenache and Mourvèdre for Dragonette's rosé, which picks up its color simply from a long, slow press cycle. Nearly all the reds go through some form of cold soak. The winery has a cold box: a repurposed 50-foot-long freight-shipping container that holds exactly nine three-high stacks of fermenting bins, minus a couple to make room for the air conditioning. The cold box can get down to 26ºF at harvest time, and 24 hours inside gets any batch of fruit quite cold. John Dragonette notes that during the harvest season in Lompoc, ambient temperature is already likely to be well below 60ºF, and with the predominant natural fermenta- tions starting slowly anyway, cold soaks are almost a freebie. Reds for both wineries mainly get done with punchdowns in bins from Macro Plastics. Temperature control largely takes care of itself, with the cool winery conditions restraining heat and the sunny parking lot just outside the door available to warm things up. The facility's stainless vessels (some Custom Metalcraft Transtores and some standard Santa Rosa Stainless Steel tanks) are equipped with glycol jacketing, though the winery does not yet have a glycol system. If one of the Transtores needs cooling, it goes into the cold box. Dragonette's whites are mainly barrel- fermented, so they rarely need chilling. Both producers rely primarily on native yeast fermentations rather than inoculations. Dragonette inoculates with yeast only when the team decides it has to, which isn't often. Just in case, they keep around a stash of some non-aromatic fallback yeasts— EC1118, RC212, Assmanhausen, R2, etc. Sparks-Gillis says that he learned as a baker years ago about the superior flavors to be gained from just letting nature take its course. After several years of inoculation, Work tried a few native ferments in 2009, half his lots in 2010, and went all natural in 2011, with nary a stuck batch. The Ampelos Viognier and rosé are inoculated. Malolactic fermentation, too, mainly gets done by virtue of resident microbes. Ampelos prevents malolactic in its Viognier through a combination of temperature control and lysozyme. Dragonette stops the malolactic for its Sauvignon Blanc but lets it go for the barrel-fermented Chardonnay as well as the Chardonnays it does for the Liquid Farm label. Since Liquid Farm emphasizes a less-ripe, Chablis-esque style, converting the malic acid is important for taking off the acidic edge. Sparks- Gillis found it amusing that when a new Liquid Farm release was previewed recently for a press delegation, they all guessed (incorrectly) that the wine had never undergone malo. (See "To Co-Ferment or Not Co-Ferment" on page 52.) Ampelos follows pretty standard protocols on the use of sulfur dioxide, starting with 50 parts per million at the crusher, perhaps a 46 WINES & VINES OCTOBER 2012