WINEMAKING PONZI VINEYARDS
19500 Southwest Mountain Home Road, Sherwood, Ore. (503) 628-1227 • ponziwines.com
TECHNICAL REVIEW
Winery Case Production 35,000
OWNERS Ponzi Family
WINEMAKER Luisa Ponzi
PONZI VINEYARDS WASHINGTON COUNTY AVERAGE OREGON AVERAGE U.S. AVERAGE
14,000 6,200 44,000 0 WINERY AVA Willamette Valley, Chehalem Mountains BONDED YEAR 1970 THE CHALLENGE
Oregon Pinot Noir pioneer Dick Ponzi enjoyed three decades of successful winemaking in an improvised, cramped winery. While the wines turned out well, the winemaking was a la- borious process using forklifts to mimic a gravity-flow system. Ponzi realized his dream of a modern and sustainable winery in time for the 2008 vintage. Dubbed Colligno del Sogno— or Hillside of Our Dreams—the winery is built into a hillside and uses gravity to facilitate movement of must, juice and finished wine through every stage of winemaking.
BUILDING THE WINERY Design and general contracting
Dick Ponzi Excavation Pihl Excavating, pihl-inc.com
Construction Knopf Brothers Construction, (503) 232-9720
Solar panels Tanner Creek Energy, tanner- creekenergy.com; Christenson Electric, christenson.com
Metal
fabrication Concrete
Varco Pruden Buildings, vp.com
Whitaker/Ellis, whitakerellis.com
WINERY SERVICES Laboratory services
Mobile cross- flow filtration
Case goods storage
Regulatory compliance
Marketing and PR
Web sales/ POS/inven- tory software
MAKING THE WINE Conveyor
Sorting table DeJong Products, dejongproducts.com
Destemmer- crusher
Press
1985 model Amos, defrance- schi-spa.com, valleypipe.com
For Pinot, Willmes, Scott Laboratories, scottlab.com; for whites, Europress, Euro- Machines, euromachines.com
Seasonal cold container rental
Fermenta- tion/blending tanks
Winery lab includes spectro- photometry capacity; some testing sent out to ETS Labo- ratories, etslabs.com
Cascade Mobile Wine Servic- es, cascadewineservices.com
On site Done in house
Done in house by marketing department
Distribution 50-state coverage with Wilson Daniels,wilsondaniels.com
Web design and compliance done in house; inventory control and accounting via Sage 300 EtRP software, Sage North America, na.sage.com
44 WINES & VINES NOVEMBER 2012
Insertable tank-chilling units
Barrel washing
Transport Refrigeration Co., transportrefrigerationco.com
JVNW, jvnw.com; AAA Metal Fabrication, aaametal.com
JVNW, jvnw.com
Gamajet Cleaning Systems, gamajet.com
PACKAGING Bottles
Corks Closures
VINEYARD ACREAGE
120 DTC SALES 30% 25,000 50,000 Winery Average Bottle Price
PONZI VINEYARDS WASHINGTON COUNTY AVERAGE OREGON AVERAGE U.S. AVERAGE
$24 $27 $9 $0 $20 $40 Source: WinesVinesDATA $40
Van Weld Metal Fabrication, (503) 359-0745
BARRELS
François Frères, francoisfreres.com, supplied by Mel Knox Barrel Broker, knoxbarrels.com; Tonnellerie Ermitage, amy@ermitageusa. com; Tonnellerie Sirugue, sirugueusa.com; Tonnellerie Bel Air, tonnellerie-bel-air.fr; Cadus, Damy, Bouchard Cooperages, boucha- rdcooperages.com; Oregon Barrel Works, oregonbarrelworks.com; Tonnellerie Saury, sauryusa.com; Allary Tonnellerie, Nicholas Keeler International, nicholaskeeler.com
Barrel racking
Bulldog Pup racking wand, Bulldog Manufacturing, bulldogmfg.com
Filtration Velo Acciai DE filter, Vintners Supply Co., vintnerssupply.com, and mobile cross-flow services, Cascade Mobile Wine Services, cascadewineservices.com
Bottling line
GAI, AWS/Prospero, prosperocorp.biz
TricorBraun, tricorbraun.com
Rich Xiberta USA, xiberta.com
Stelvin, Amcor Flexibles American Canyon, amcor.com
Label design Done in-house by marketing department
Label printing LabelOne Connect, labeloneconnect.com
