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WINEMAKING making them 50%-75% more expensive, according to Paschina, and mobile bottling is usually not an option. Paschina estimates that it takes $250,000 worth of equipment to set up a modest Charmat facility. The real bummer is that, after putting in all this cash, you can't sell the wine at méthode champenoise prices. Twenty dollars per bot- tle is more or less the point at which consum- ers start demanding all those gnomes in the caves flipping bottles. (South Coast does list its Blanc de Blanc at $28.) This means that economically sustainable Charmat produc- tion requires a certain scale of operation. The cost conundrum is actually lead- ing Paschina and Barboursville to get out of the Charmat business. The winery, in- tent on making first-rate wines, is in the process of upgrading all its equipment; including the capacity for processing sparkling wine to every piece of machin- ery would add a major surcharge. Since Paschina thinks the fairly warm climate means they can make very good but not world-class sparklers, it's probably not worth the outlay, and instead they will begin importing Italian bubbly—and mé- thode champenoise bubbly at that—for the resort and restaurant with which the winery is connected. McPherson knows he's a lucky winemaker at South Coast, also part of a vacation com- plex, because the owner was willing to sink roughly a million bucks into equipping the Charmat facility with multiple tanks and all the other equipment. South Coast produces about 8,000 cases of sparklers per year and sells half of it on site at the resort, restaurant and spa. These expenditures make sense for Weibel, since custom Charmat is their busi- ness, adding up to about 220,000 cases per year, including their own and customer la- bels. The math works for Bronco, which sells a boatload of wine. So far, it hasn't made sense for Rack and Riddle, the Mendocino custom-crush sparkler specialists, but Mark Garaventa of R&R's custom wine services says it's something they have considered from time to time and occasionally get calls for. Weibel, by the way, also handles an en- tirely different approach to making spar- klers: carbonation. No riddling, no lees, no secondary fermentation, just chill table wine and inject bubbles into it. (I do this in my garage with beer kegs.) If that sounds entirely like cheating, Steele Wines wine- maker Joy Merrilees says they also prefer going this route (using Weibel), because it yields more consistent results than ei- ther Charmat or méthode. For the record, Steele's Black Bubbles sparkling Syrah wins its share of medals, too. To a Hearty Harvest! Nothing says "Job well done!" more than a bountiful harvest that reflects both the poetry and the prose of the wine industry. So while you take joy in the season past and look forward to the one ahead, know that First Community Bank is ever ready to assist with a broad range of financing needs: • Winery Construction & Expansion • Ownership Repositioning & Buyouts • Long-Term Real Estate Loans Bryan Borders Senior V.P. Let us share the bounty of our experience in wine industry lending with you! Give a call today. First Community Bank Decidedly Different. www.fcbconnect.com 54 WINES & VINES DECEMBER 2012 (888) 866-2164 BBorders@FCBConnect.com Is there a future? Most Charmat in the United States is made in the quick in-and-out style, tank- fermented long enough to build up pres- sure and then sent on its way. Some of it leverages second-rate fruit with the entice- ment of bubbles, and some of it may be a tad sweet for "serious" palates, though this is more a matter of taste than moral value. To get more of the premium stuff, wines in the same league as good Prosecco and comparable to bottle-fermented versions would either require more wineries to sink big bucks into the idea, or more custom- bottle places like Weibel willing to tie up tanks for a year or two in pursuit of com- plexity. Given the tricky economics, that may not happen for a good long while. But there's no reason in the winemaking why it couldn't be done. Tim Patterson is the author of "Home Wine- making for Dummies." He writes about wine and makes his own in Berkeley, Calif. Years of experience as a journalist, combined with a con- trarian streak, make him interested in getting to the bottom of wine stories, casting a critical eye on conventional wisdom in the process.