Folks often ask why we have a six foot tall, ton and half concrete egg in our winery. It is actually a fermenter that holds nearly 200 gallons of Pinot Gris from Filigreen Farms and there are three reasons we use it: 1) It looks really cool! Who wouldn’t want to have a giant egg? 2) It’s made of concrete which has some pretty neat properties – it has a huge thermal mass which means it takes a long time to warm up once the juice starts fermenting and cools off quite slowly once the ferment finishes. This thermal inertia helps build the rich textured mouth-feel we strive for. Also, concrete is not completely inert and actually imparts a stony flavor to the wine. 3) The shape – during fermentation, there are billions of yeast cells suspended in the wine. Once the fermentation slows down and the yeast is less active they normally fall to the bottom of the tank or barrel allowing the wine to clarify. Because of the egg’s shape and the lack of any straight lines there is always a convection current that moves yeast cells from the bottom of the egg back to the top. This natural stirring keeps the yeast in contact with the wine and creates texture and weight to mouth. Basically, a concrete egg is a mouth-feel building machine!

February 20,  2012

Freshly fermented Pinot Noir can be frustrating to taste and evaluate in November and December. The Malolactic fermentation is underway and the wines are constantly changing – one day a barrel can taste amazing and the next day less so. It is only after the wines have been sulfured and left to rest for a month or two that they start to show their true character. I’m happy to report that after tasting through all of our 2012 barrels, the wines are starting to consistently shine.

January 10, 2012

We started pruning the Chardonnay vines at Savoy last week. We tend to start with the Chardonnay first and then move on to the Pinot Noir. Pruning is the process of removing last year’s growth and leaving the right number of buds which will grow into this year’s shoots. There is an art to pruning to maintain a healthy balanced vine. On vines that were weak last year we leave fewer buds so that the vine will hopefully produce more robust shoots this season. If, on the other hand, the vines were too vigorous last year and produced growth that required lots of hedging, we will leave more buds so as give the vine an outlet for it’s energy.

 December 16, 2011                                                                

You don’t really need a weather station to tell you its cold when there is a heavy frost outside, but it is still interesting to look at the temperature data at Savoy vineyard for the first two weeks of December. We had a ten day run of clear nights and hard frosts in the morning while the afternoon temperatures warmed to around 60°F. This week, the fog has rolled into the valley most nights keeping the temperatures well above freezing.

December 13, 2011

Our Donnelly Creek and Filigreen Pinot Gris are now done fermenting and the blending trials to put together our 2011 Anderson Valley Pinot Gris are underway. There are a number of components to play with including, lots fermented in stainless steel tanks, neutral French oak barrels, our 900 gallon oak cask, and our Nomblot concrete egg. Most of the lots in tank and cask fermented completely dry while the barrel ferments still have a small amount of residual sugar that helps add weight and texture to the wine. We will put together dozens of blends over the next two months with a final blend going to tank in March.

The odd looking machine in the background of the photo is an old centrifuge we use to spin down samples of wine. Having only just finished fermenting, the wines still have lots of yeast suspended in solution, resembling something like a Hefeweizen. Centrifuging settles out all of the cells and gives us an idea of what the wine will taste like once all of the yeast settles out.

November 14, 2011

As soon as harvest is complete each autumn, vineyards are typically sprinkled with a cover crop that grows throughout the winter.  These seeds help build soil structure, prevent erosion, and return nutrients to the vineyard. This year we are experimenting with an insectiary mix of seeds that includes native flowers, which attract beneficial insects that prey on many of the pests that give us headaches in the vineyard including leaf hoppers, thrips, and mites. Bringing in these beneficial insects to control pests is an important part of sustainable farming, allowing us to avoid using insecticides at Savoy.

Fermenting Pinot Noir must from Donnelly Creek is pumped through an irrigator which gently splashes the must over the cap of grapes that forms during the fermentation. Pumpovers improve extraction and help keep the cap from over heating.

Pressing Ferrington Pinot Noir in our Coquard Bucket Press.  We harvested our first Pinot on September 23 and after 19 days on the skins it is ready to press. I find that long maceration help build intensity and texture in our Pinots.

For our harvest luncheon the caterer paired three delicious cheeses with clusters of Chardonnay grapes from Savoy Vineyard. We picked the Chardonnay early in the morning and were loading the press when our guests arrived. In addition to eating the grapes with cheese everyone got to try the fresh juice straight from the press and watch as barrels were filled.

Our Cellar Master is loading the press with Ferrington Vineyard Gewürztraminer. Our first grapes of 2011! The juice is pressing at 22.7° Brix and tastes great! From the press the juice is pumped into a settling tank where it will chill over night and tomorrow be racked to neutral French oak barrels for an indigenous fermentation.