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TECHNICAL SPOTLIGHT WINEMAKING April 2018 WINES&VINES 35 Music is a priority for Duncan, who sings and plays harmonica as a member of the country rock band The Silverado Pickups (performing May 27 at the 2018 BottleRock festival in Napa Valley). Once fermentation is complete, the pomace is pressed with one of two Diemme Enologia membrane presses, and the wine is racked to barrel. Barrel work is done in a separate room that houses a Tom Beard Co. Barrel Processing System that is used not only for barrel washing but also racking and filling. Barrels are laid onto a conveyor that then moves them into position to be filled, racked or cleaned. Key to Silver Oak's style is the use of Ameri- can oak barrels. The company invested in a small cooperage in Higbee, Mo., in 2000 and bought it outright 15 years later. Now known as The Oak Cooperage, the company primarily supplies barrels built with staves of Missouri white oak to Silver Oak and Twomey wineries, but it does produce some for sale to other win- eries and a limited number of barrels for the spirits industries. Seismic stability At the new Alexander Valley winery, those bar- rels now rest on four-barrel racks made by Western Square. Duncan said the larger racks provide seismic stability, and he knows how well they performed in the 2014 Napa earth- quake that damaged the Oakville facility. After barrel aging, the wine will then be bottled on the new Bertolaso line from ColloPack Solu- tions that Duncan described as an investment in quality assurance for wine. While the new winery did process grapes during the 2017 vintage, construction was delayed by about a month because of the heavy winter rains and then by two months because of the North Coast wildfires that prevented key contractors from getting to the construction site. Three Silver Oak employees also lost their homes in the fires. Duncan said the Oakville winery didn't have power for about a week, but backup generators kept it running. As far as the 2017 vintage goes, Duncan said the last grape lot was picked Oct. 8 and, because fire erupted that night, Silver Oak missed the smoke. "I would say we have zero effect from the fires from a smoke-taint standpoint," he said. Expected to be completed in April, the win- ery's tasting room features a modern and subtle design similar to that of the winery, but is situ- ated at a higher elevation to provide more views of the surrounding vineyard. The winery was built in a depression to make the most of what could have been a weak spot in the vine- yard and to hide it from the highway. "We wanted to minimize the impact of the winery visually, and we also wanted to build it on the worst spot of the vineyard, so that's why it's in a hole there," Duncan said. "When you drive in and the vines are growing, you can't even see the winery." The San Francisco firm Sagan Piechota Ar- chitecture designed the winery, and the lead contractor was Cello & Maudru Construction. Summit Engineering handled structural, civil and wastewater engineering on the project. The landscape architect was Marta Fry Land- scape Associates. Both the private and public areas of the tasting room feature floor-to-ceiling doors that can be opened during pleasant weather. The winery is permitted for 26 events per year and has a commercial kitchen larger than the one at the Oakville winery. At the heart of the tasting room building will be a circular wine library containing glass-walled racks of bottles that surrounding a 12,000- pound basalt boulder. The boulder is in- tended to help make the room a visually stunning centerpiece for visitors and also ties in the tasting room floor, which is comprised of 30-inch by 30-inch basalt tile. One innovative design and hospitality touch is a footpath that leads from the tasting room through a vineyard and to the winery. Once Winery Online Marketing System Grower Online Marketing System Brewer Online Marketing System Distributor Market Service Distillery Database Custom Data Reports REACH MORE DECISION MAKERS • WINES & VINES DATA SERVICES winesandvines.com • winesandvines.com/databases