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TECHNICAL SPOTLIGHT WINEMAKING March 2018 WINES&VINES 53 Cohn's first production space was in a shared facility with Dashe Cellars in down- town Oakland. He then moved into another custom-crush space called R&B Cellars in Point Richmond, Calif. With the move to Santa Rosa, Cohn is get- ting close to the source of his grapes and has his own facility. In 2017, the Cohns also opened a tasting room located on the historic plaza of the city of Sonoma. The tasting room also means a new sales strategy focused on building direct-to-consumer sales that now account for about 40% of total wine sales. "Having the new tasting room in downtown Sonoma has really changed the playing field for us," Cohn said. While the Oakland location did draw good traffic, the visitors were generally just dropping in or planning only to spend a tasting fee. Tour- ists strolling the Sonoma Plaza are typically in the area for wine tasting and are open and eager to pay. Cohn said traffic has dropped, but per-person spending has gone way up. "I only see things getting better as we keep build- ing name recognition," he added. About half of Cohn's production is Rhône varietals, and the rest are single-vineyard Zinfandels from noted vineyards in the Rock- pile AVA, Sonoma Valley, Russian River Valley and the Sierra Foothills. Preserving freshness As Cohn's winemaking, palate and style has evolved, he said he's become more focused on producing wines with "freshness." Key to this has been using large-format oak. While he continues to purchase new barrels, much more of his oak budget is getting used for French puncheons or larger casks. "We're slowly but surely going away from using a lot of 228-liter barrels," he said. "Most of my production is going into larger formats." He has used a 600-gallon cask by Tonnel- lerie Rousseau for more than 15 years, and that longevity is another reason he likes the larger oak formats. Larger barrels mean less evaporation and less oxygen because of the larger volume of wine. "I find that in North- ern California, we don't make very tannic wines; we make very rich wines, and I think they stay fresher in larger format barrels," he said. Cohn said he doesn't rack after pressing but lets the wine rest undisturbed. When it's time to top, he lays all of the barrels down one high, washes the exteriors and gives them an ozone rinse before topping. Another new piece of equipment for the winery was a Carlsen & Associates ozone machine. When Cohn was starting at Rosenblum, he convinced the owner and founder, Kent Rosenblum, to purchase two 500-liter pun- cheons for a trial. "We put some Rockpile Zin in and separated them from all the 228s," Cohn said. "I'd always find (the puncheons) were the lowest barrel, the lowest filled bar- rel, and I thought that doesn't make sense, why is it so low?" It turned out that Rosenblum liked the puncheons, and whenever he was giving a tour, he made sure to sample from the pun- cheons. The next year, Rosenblum invested in 80 puncheons. Back at Rosenblum, Cohn said he'd buy from "a million different cooperages," but that list of suppliers has since been narrowed down LIQUID NITROGEN DOSING regardless of your package or closure preference Minimize dissolved oxygen Extend shelf life Purge O 2 from empty bottles Purge O 2 from headspace Pressurize light-weight aluminum cans 4 Barten Lane, Woburn, MA 01801 T 781-933-3570 F 781-932-9428 sales@vacuumbarrier.com vacuumbarrier.com SINCE 1958 "I find that in Northern California, we don't make very tannic wines; we make very rich wines, and I think they stay fresher in larger format barrels." —Jeff Cohn, Jeff Cohn Cellars