This week, I want to take you behind the scenes into our kitchen to discuss one of our favorite purveyors—Rain Crow Ranch, a great family-owned farm in southern Missouri. Rain Crow supplies all our beef, and it is 100% grass-fed, free-range, and hormone & antibiotic-free.
The taste and quality of the beef is exceptional, but we also appreciate that all of their animals are treated humanely. It really comes through in the product. The cattle are born, raised and finished on open grass pastures, and the family is truly passionate about providing the healthiest, safest and highest quality beef possible.
I like to use the beef for our City Winery Sliders because it tastes like a real no fuss, no muss burger. An order of our sliders includes three mini all-beef burgers, served with lettuce and tomato on pretzel rolls. I don’t add a lot of fancy ingredients to the burgers and like that the natural beef flavors can stand on their own. On our new spring menu, we will be offering the sliders on a light brioche bun.
Another popular menu item made with Rain Crow beef is our Braised Short Rib. The short ribs are braised in red wine and stock at a low temperature in the oven for close to six hours. They are served over creamy rosemary scented polenta and topped with a tangy tomato chutney. It’s an elegant, delicious dish.
These are two of our most popular items, thanks to Rain Crow Ranch. The sliders are a big hit with kids, too, and are great for sharing and even hearty enough to be an entree. Even if you are a vegetarian, this meat will make you wish you weren’t! I’m exaggerating, but you are missing out if you haven’t tried these menu items!
As mentioned previously, our first shipment of grapes this fall was accompanied by our new 12hl (317 gal) press, affectionately known as the Beast. Well, last week we let her loose. She is more than double the capacity of our old press, and with the ability to be programmed, the operator is now free to press more grapes, rather than buttons. Pressing grapes is actually a complex, multi-step process. It must be done very slowly, building up pressure gradually so that juice extraction is maximized. With each stage of the pressing, there is an interval of relief to allow juice to flow through open channels in the pomace. Without this, the channels would close and much of the juice would be trapped in pockets. Our current process builds up hydraulic pressure in 10 bar increments (one bar equals one atmosphere, or 14.7 psi). We go up to about 90 bar this way. This is actually the pressure of the hydraulic fluid, not that on the pomace, which tops out at around 4.5 bar.
The first step is to bleed juice from the tanks beginning the day before, so that when the door is opened, there is not a gushing flood. The wet pomace is then shoveled out of the tank into half-ton bins that can be moved by pallet jack to the loading dock. The empty press basket is removed from the press by forklift and placed just below the loading dock to be filled. After pressing is complete, the process is reversed: the dry “cake” is removed from the basket and shoveled for a third time into composting bins. The pressed wine is divided into two parts: light press and hard press. Usually, only the light press is aged in oak barrels. If you look in our barrel cellar, most of the wine from each vineyard is marked as “FR” for free run (the wine which freely flows out of the fermenter during the bleed) and “LP” for light press. The hard press is stored in stainless steel kegs and used for a variety of purposes.
Use of the Press Wine
As you might expect, the press wine is rich, dense and as Robert Parker might say, “backward”. It lacks the aromatic complexity of the free run and is fairly harsh and unbalanced all by itself. It is also slightly sweeter than the free run. Some of the sugars locked up in the pulp are released by pressing, and often the press wine will resume alcoholic fermentation until this residual sugar is consumed. The dried pomace has some alcohol left in it as well: this can be distilled into Grappa or the french l’eau de vie de marc most notably. As our wines are aged in oak, they are constantly evolving. Our head winemaker, David Lecomte, monitors each wine assiduously in barrel right up to bottling. Sometimes press wine is added to the free run if he wants to add a bit more depth or structure. Various combinations are tried until his palate is satisfied with the final result. Care must be exercised because adding too much of the press wine could produce harsh tannins and reduce acidity. This is where a winemaker’s talents play a critical role. Only after many years of experience can a winemaker taste a immature barrel sample and know what needs to be done in order to achieve a final result that is worthy.
Check out the gallery below for illustrations of the various steps mentioned above:
Close to one-quarter of our entire fall harvest arrived last Saturday. Needless to say, it was a long day for us, but it was also filled with high expectations. We were not disappointed. The grapes arrived in top condition ready to fill our hungry tanks. In the Pinot Noir department, we received grapes from the Bien Nacido vineyards in the Santa Maria Valley and the Bacigalupi vineyards in the Russian River. Petite Syrah and Zinfandel arrived from Lodi as well.
Assistant Winemaker Bill Anton delivered pallet after pallet of grapes to the loading dock where Sikou Nakate and his trusty pallet jack were waiting to lift and pull each one-ton stack to the loading station. In the case of the Petite Syrah, whose clusters tend to run somewhat large compared to other varieties, the stems had to be snipped into smaller pieces so that they would go through the destemmer properly. Working in shifts, the sorting table was kept busy all day long, with only short interruptions in order to move from one tank to the next. Purple hands and sticky fingers were in abundance.
With our second crush of the season now finished, three-quarters of our fermenters are already full. It is now up to the hard-working yeast cells to transform all that sugary must into wine. We tend to them day and night making sure they complete their important task on schedule. This means regular pump overs, punch downs and temperature regulation. Our lab technicians are busy monitoring the progress and if all goes well, we will start to press and barrel down during the next two weeks. As you can see, timing will be very important so that tanks are available for more crop as it comes in. We are excited about breaking in our new press that will make this process more manageable. Stay tuned for updates.
David begins the unloading process as the sun rises
A forest of grapes
Fresh fruit
Bins waiting to be loaded
Filling the fermenters
City Winery restaurant staff take a turn at the sorting table
Last Saturday we had one of our largest crushes ever — 20 tons of grapes! Thanks to our dedicated members, staff and friends, it was processed in record time without a hitch. In fact, they managed to sort the grapes with such precision and care that David’s high standards of winemaking were held in the highest regard. In the time lapse video below, you will see most of the day’s effort compressed into two and a half minutes.
This past Sunday we arrived in the pre-dawn hours for our first crop of the season: 6 tons of Pinot Noir grapes from Carneros. Within the Carneros AVA, these grapes were harvested from two vineyards: Poseidon and Beckstoffer. They were in excellent condition and the sweet aromas made us feel like a part of each vineyard came with them! As a matter of fact, if you closed your eyes on this quiet Sunday morning and felt the warm, bright sun shining on the pallets loaded high with moist grapes, you might have thought you were in the middle of a vineyard.
This delivery was more than just grapes, however. It included our new 5-ton press: we call it the Beast. It will allow us to dramatically increase the amount of grapes we can press in one day. Pressing is actually one of the most time consuming and labor intensive procedures. With our old press, which was quite a bit smaller and not programmable, it would take much longer to press a tank than to fill it with the crush. Below you will find our gallery of photos from the day.
Jared and Bill unload grape bins from the tractor trailer
Early morning sun makes for dramatic lighting
David lifting a pallet of grape bins
David inspecting the crop
Pulling the five ton press within reach of the forklift
Success! David secures the new press with the forklift
David making sure everything is ok
Into the parking lot she goes . . .
Ripe Pinot Noir from Carneros about to be crushed
One last taste before starting the sorting table
And the crush is ON!
Sorting grapes: fun for the whole family!
The Joy of Sorting
It’s raining grapes!
Filling one of our stainless fermenters
After the crush, it’s out to the back lot for swelling barrels and painting the base of the new press
David applying primer to the base of the press
Once-used french oak barrels from Opus One being swelled
Last night City Winery hosted the irrepressible Dave Powell, owner and winemaker at Torbreck.
Here is Dave speaking on the style he’s going for with his Woodcutter’s Semillon and Roussanne/Marsanne/Viognier whites: “I like wines with acidity and cut, not fat and flabby wines. Having just passed my 50th birthday, I can see fat and flab in the mirror anytime I want, I don’t need to see it in my wines.”
As I sit here at my keyboard in Soho, our first crop of the season is being hand harvested at the Poseidon Vineyard in Napa. These luscious Pinot Noir grapes have reached the point of optimal ripeness and will soon be on their way to City Winery. The small yellow bins that you see above will be stacked high in a refrigerated tractor trailer and covered with a protective blanket of argon gas to retard oxidation. If all goes as planned we will have them in our hands this Sunday! Six tons are expected and will make for a gentle opening to our fall crush (We have been known to crush as many as twenty tons in one day!).
The Poseidon Vineyard, situated in the Carneros AVA at the northern end of San Francisco Bay, was first planted by the Molnar family in 1973 where the cooling winds from the Pacific temper the summer heat. This maritime climate is ideal for growing Pinot Noir grapes so that they ripen slowly and develop phenolic ripeness at the same time as sugar ripeness. Phenolics are a vast group of organic compounds that are responsible for the color, tannins and complex flavors found in wine. Over the years, the quality of this vineyard has been so remarkable that many of the big names in Napa purchase grapes from it, including Joseph Phelps, Heitz Cellars, Sterling, Pride Mountain, Acacia, and Mumm (The PinotFile, Volume 9, Issue 11, September 11, 2012).
Those of you who read my last post know how busy we have been preparing the winery for the biggest crush of the year. Time is of the essence so that when the grapes arrive they are crushed and placed into fermentation tanks without delay. Today we finished cleaning and reassembling our conveyors and made sure the tanks are fully cleaned and sanitized. As you can see below, these are big tanks (6,500 liters or 1,717 gallons) and require a person to actually get inside to do the job thoroughly.
Sikou Nakate preparing to clean one of the 6500 liter fermenters
Cleaning a stainless steel fermenter in preparation for Sunday's crush
Work schedules are being drawn up and provisions made to have the fermenting juice, pulp, and skins, aka the must, attended every day from early morning to late at night. For the next two weeks or so, it will be like incubating very precious farm eggs: keeping the temperature just right, making sure there is proper ventilation (or circulation in this case), and constantly monitoring the development. And this is only the beginning of what we hope will be our most phenomenal harvest to date!
City Winery recently entered various wines to be judged at The San Francisco International Wine Competition, which is one of the most prestigious international wine competitions in the nation. This summer the event was held at the distinguished Hotel Nikko downtown San Francisco, and the panel of judges comprised of the leading wine experts in the country. The competition, just celebrated it’s 32nd anniversary of judging and awarding wine excellence saw over 4500 different wines from 26 different states and 29 countries. There were many different categories of competition, including the “Best in Show,” “Portfolio of the Year,” “Winemaker of the Year,” “Winery of the year,” “Best of Varietal,” and the “Best of Nation.”
City Winery is very proud of our winemaking process, where we source our grapes from some of the finest vineyards in America as well as the world renown Catena Vineyards in Agrelo, Medoza Argentina. Because we are a winery in the middle of the city we have great resources to bring the most elegant and bold flavored fruits to our dining tables. We are pleased to announce that our 2010Kosher Syrah Mendocino was awarded with a gold medal, and 4 others came back with silver and bronze medallions. The silver award winning wines included our 2009 Cabernet Franc, known for being a tannic and powerful wine which has a distinct taste of dark berries, and our 2008 Cabernet Sauvignon. Bronze medals were awarded to our 2010 Pinot Noir and 2009 Syrah. We look forward to another year of continued wine making success, and sharing our love for making fine wine.
As August draws to a close here at City Winery, word is arriving that our fall crop is going to be extraordinary this year. The growing season in California has been nearly ideal so we are expecting to have our fermenters filled to capacity in the next few weeks. Crushing up to one hundred tons of grapes takes a lot of blood, sweat and tears so we reach out to many of our staff, members and friends to pitch in. In other words: ALL HANDS ON DECK!
The work itself is quite exhilarating for those who appreciate the art of winemaking. Seeing the freshly picked grapes as they arrive opens a new window into the enjoyment of wine. Suddenly you make a direct connection between these luscious, aromatic fruit and the flavors that make wine such a distinct and delightful experience. Tasting a Pinot Noir grape and comparing that to a fresh Cabernet Sauvignon grape immediately reveals the source of their differences. The Pinot Noir’s bracing acidity and crispness contrasts with the thicker-skinned Cabernet Sauvignon grape that is rich and chewy.
But the real miracle is to witness the transformation from juice to wine. The combination of crushed grapes and juice, known as the must, begins it’s metamorphosis as a beautifully sweet and intensely flavored mixture. As the yeasts begin their work, the sugars are replaced with a complex variety of compounds that add a wide range of new tastes and aromas. Gradually the must becomes more wine-like over the roughly two-week fermentation process. During this period, the must is tasted and analyzed twice a day in our lab. Adjustments are made in order to insure the best possible outcome.
The preparations for the crush are moving into high gear. The fermenters need to be thoroughly inspected and cleaned, as do all the conveyors, destemming machine and sorting tables. Pumps, hoses and fittings are being put in order for managing the must. New barrels are being acquired and must be tested for leaks and other imperfections. Existing barrels are undergoing a thorough inspection, then washed and set in racks for receiving new wine. Our basket press will be taken out of storage and similarly prepped. Once a crush begins, there are no timeouts, so everything must be in near perfect working order. In the event of an equipment failure, we review our backup procedures. As they say, “Hope for the best and prepare for the worst” is the order of the day.
The winery is a hub of great activity and anticipation as we strive to improve every aspect of vinification each harvest. David Lecomte, our head winemaker, is never satisfied with just maintaining the status quo, no matter how diligent. We have been upgrading and intensifying our laboratory analyses with new staff and protocols. This will allow David to prevent or more quickly correct any must issues before they cause a wine fault. A week ago we received a new bottling machine that will allow us to substantially increase our capacity. This is important for the harvest because it will free up barrels and rack space as the aged wine can be put into bottles more quickly.
September marks a new beginning for City Winery with its sister facility in Chicago now open and ready for its first harvest. Together we watch the ripening grapes in California, Oregon, Washington and elsewhere with renewed excitement. With our combined knowledge and experience, this fall offers us an opportunity to make the best City Winery vintage yet.
This was a very exciting day for all of us here at City Winery. We reached out to many of our good friends and staff to mobilize for the arrival of twenty tons of Malbec grapes from Argentina. This is the most labor intensive aspect of winemaking, and it was “all hands on deck.” Even those not directly involved in the effort came to watch and photograph. It seems that there is something alluring, almost mysterious about seeing fresh grapes transformed from a simple ripe fruit into a product that many regard as a work of art. The draw is even more intense because of the location: right in the heart of New York City!
In this video, you will see the tractor-trailer arrive with its precious cargo, followed by David Lecomte, our head winemaker, doing a quick inspection before the first pallet is removed by forklift. Some of the pallets had to be restacked for greater stability. Once they are placed inside the winery, the grapes are unboxed and loaded onto a conveyor to the destemming machine. There is some interesting slow-motion footage of the destemmer in action. From there the grapes travel onto the sorting table and any remaining pieces of leaves and stems are removed. You will see the whole process taking place for both the kosher and non-kosher wines.
Finally, as the grapes begin to ferment in stainless steel tanks, there is the first of many “punchdowns” of the cap after about four days to ensure an adequate extraction of flavor and color from the grape skins. The fermenting juice and skins, called the “must”, undergoes a schedule of multiple “pump overs” every day to further aid extraction, mixing and to aerate the yeasts that need oxygen to thrive. It is no wonder that the making of a fine Malbec, or any wine for that matter, requires intense labor and attentive nurturing.
Note: For the highest quality video, please view on YouTube and select 1080p from the settings menu (gear icon)
This May at City Winery NYC we received a twenty-one ton shipment of Malbec grapes from the Mendoza Valley in Argentina. Since our Spring corresponds to the Fall harvest season in the southern hemisphere, City Winery has the benefit of two harvests this year. This allows us to make better use of the Winery and gives our members the chance to make wine twice a year if they choose.
Malbec was the dominant grape variety of Bordeaux in the 18th century. Unfortunately it fell victim to phylloxera, frosts and the vicissitudes of fashion. In France today, its use is best known in the Cahors region of the southwest, not far from Bordeaux, where it produces a rich, meaty and somewhat tannic wine in its youth. The grape has seen a remarkable renaissance in the Mendoza Valley of Argentina where it was probably introduced through pre-phylloxera cuttings. The wines are generally more ripe, fruit forward and less tannic than their French counterparts. The grape is known for its deep purple-ruby color, medium to heavy body and notes of cedar, blackfruit and earth. It is a great wine to pair with meat dishes, especially a summer barbeque.
Packaging to Maintain Freshness
Our Malbec originates from the vineyards of Dr. Nicolas Catena, one of the best known Argentinian producers who has partnered with the Rothschilds of Lafite, City Winery and others in order to bring as much respect for Malbec as Cabernet Sauvignon enjoys in other parts of the world. Since our crop comes to us as an international traveler, special care must be taken to make sure it arrives fresh and in peak condition. Once the grapes are harvested, they are immediately placed into special containers that prevent oxidation and refrigerated to maintain optimal ripeness. Three levels of protection are utilized: a few clusters are placed in their own small bag that prevents separation from the stem while allowing excess moisture to escape that otherwise could lead to rot. These bags are then placed in a low-sided box that prevents the grapes from crushing under their own weight. A layer of special paper impregnated with a small amount of sulphur is used to retard oxidation. The entire package is then wrapped again in plastic.
As you can see in the photos below, the crush begins with a team that unboxes the grapes. From there they are loaded onto a conveyor belt to the destemmer. The grapes fall onto the sorting table and undergo one final inspection before being placed into a fermentation vessel.
Unpacking the Grapes
With so many layers of packaging, we found it necessary to setup tables just to open and unpack the grapes. One team of workers carefully removes the grapes so they can be readily placed into the hopper.
Loading for the Non-kosher Wine
Loading for the Kosher Wine
From the hopper, the grapes ride up the conveyor belt to the destemmer. From there they fall onto the sorting table where two teams of workers, one kosher and another non-kosher, inspect and remove any remaining stem fragments or leaves before the final ride into the fermentation tank.
Sorting for the Non-kosher Wine
Sorting for the Kosher Wine
For more information about the resurgence of Malbec via Argentina, Eric Asimov, wine critic for the New York Times, wrote this article in 2010: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/28/dining/reviews/28wine.html. Here are a few highlights, including a review of the 2006 Catena Zapata, one of the many vineyards owned by Dr. Nicolas Catena:
. . . Over all, these wines were juicy and straightforward, emphasizing fruit flavors with occasional nuances. They were consistent, generally unchallenging and crowd-pleasing. In short, what’s not to like? That really depends on your point of view. Malbecs’ emphasis on soft, ripe fruitiness over more polarizing flavors and their velvety textures make them safe and reliable for people . . .
Like our top two, the other wines we liked showed admirable balance, and just enough accents to the core of fruit flavors to keep our interest. Malbecs from two of the bigger names in Argentina showed well. The 2005 Viña Francisco Olivé from Trapiche had bright, spicy flavors to offset its jamminess, while the 2006 Catena Alta from Catena Zapata was fresh, mellow and pure.
As the outdoor cooking season gets under way in earnest, with its plethora of grilled and roasted meats, malbecs would make fine choices. I tend to think of them the way I did of zinfandels, before so many zinfandels became top-heavy with alcohol. They are likable and powerful enough in their own right. And if you served them slightly cool, as Florence suggested, well, then you have a fine summer party wine.
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CHEERS!
F R O M A L L O F U S AT C I T Y W I N E R Y , E N J O Y T H E R E S T O F Y O U R S U M M E R ,
Most of the wine produced at City Winery is aged in oak barrels for periods ranging from six months to over two years. When first placed into the barrel, some of the new wine is absorbed into the wood, especially if it is new. Gradually, air will be drawn into the barrel as this happens. Since wood is not an airtight container, some wine is also lost to evaporation. To prevent oxidation the barrels must periodically be “topped” with additional wine to eliminate any air space. The following video is a tongue-in-cheek look at topping barrels, meant to be entertaining as well as informative. Shot entirely on-location at City Winery.
Intro: A lone cellar intern contends with wine barrels that need topping. The consequences of letting the wine oxidize lead to an out-of-control chemical reaction that has everyone running for cover.
Kosher Assistant Winemaker Yanky Drew pressed two puncheon barrels of kosher Pinot Noir grapes today.
Check out the video above for a look at how Yanky emptied the puncheons to get the pressing started.
After all of the juice flowed out, Yanky emptied the barrel of its grapes using a metal tool (as seen pictured above).
The small batch of Pinot Noir grapes was placed in the winery’s basket press and voila, there was pressed wine! (For more background on pressing, learn how to press red wine grapes here.)
After the pressing, the dry pomace (pictured above) wasn’t as dry as usual — because the batch was small, the piston wasn’t able to fully compress the grapes. We lost out on a little bit of wine, but rest assured, you’ll be drinking some quality kosher wine when we bottle this next season.
Cheers to that!
Video courtesy of wine aficionado Henry Gonzalez. Photos courtesy of Henry Gonzalez and Erica Swallow
City Winery and its team are quite diverse, partially due to the winery’s situation in downtown New York City, but also based on the winery’s multi-purpose use as a winery, entertainment venue, restaurant and tasting room.
Each week, we update you on the latest goings on at the winery. But we thought it’d be nice to take a glance back at some of the unique traits of our winery with a few fun facts about us. We hope you find these facts about our winemaking as interesting as we do!
1. When lees (that is, deposits of dead or residual yeast and other particles that precipitate to the bottom of a tank of wine after fermentation and aging) is removed from a wine at City Winery, we recycle it to the kitchen, where white lees is used to make pizza dough and red lees is used to make pretzels. Really dark lees can also be used to paint barrels.
3. We don’t “crush” grapes at City Winery. Instead, we simply destem and sort grapes before they are placed in tanks. This helps us maintain the integrity of the fruit as much as we can in order to optimize fresh aromas in the wine.
4. Press wine makes up about 25% of City Winery’s red wine production.
5. City Winery produces a number of kosher wines each year. The kosher winemaking process is overseen by the winery’s Kosher Assistant Winemaker Yanky Drew.
6. The Winery’s Barrel Room uses a house wine tap system to funnel up wines from the winery’s wine cellar. The system employs 11 taps and enables the winery to serve fresh wines on site.
7. At City Winery, we top barrels every 2-3 weeks to prevent oxidation. During the topping, we use the same variety of the wine being topped.
8. The City Winery team bottles and labels all wines on site. In fact, our in-house designer creates all of the wine labels used on our house and barrel member wines.
9. One barrel of wine fills 21 cases — that’s 252 bottles of delicious wine!
10. Because City Winery is located in Manhattan, it cannot be situated on a vineyard. Instead of growing our own grapes, we source grapes from some of the finest vineyards in California, New York, Chile and Argentina.
What else would you like to know about City Winery? Let us know in the comments below.
Winemaker David Lecomte explains City Winery’s ventilation and lighting accessories used during the press as two teammates shovel out about 2 tons of pomace from a tank.
The City Winery team has been busy pressing wines for the past week or so.
Pressing occurs after primary fermentation, when a winemaker determines if the young wine has reached its full potential and is ready to be pressed.
In short, pressing takes place once a wine is dry — that is, the free run wine has no more sugars to be fermented.
There are two types of wines that are produced during this stage of winemaking:
Free run wine is the wine that runs freely from a tank once the valve is opened.
Press wine is the wine that is squeezed from the solids placed in a press. At City Winery, we press two rounds of wine: light press and hard press.
Take a look at the video above and the pictures below for a tutorial on how to press red wine grapes and let us know if you have questions in the comments below!
Lecomte bleeds the tank, removing all of the final liquid, which is known as free run wine.
The first step of pressing wine is bleeding the tank of all final liquid, also known as the free run wine.
Free run wine is generally the highest quality wine, as it is the most aromatically elegant and has the cleanest mouthfeel, as it does not have the cloudiness brought about by lees in press wine.
Lecomte opens the tank after the bleed.
After all of the free run wine is bled out, the tank is opened and all of the wet pomace — the grape skin, seeds and stems left in the tank — is removed.
If a good bleed is administered, a block of wet pomace will flow out when the tank is opened. If not, a fountain of juices will flow out — this could result in the loss of wine, as it could spew everywhere.
Lecomte and wine aficionado Henry Gonzalez shovel out the pomace.
Once the tank is opened, it is necessary for someone to enter the tank and shovel out the pomace. That person enters through the bottom of the tank, instead of the top of the tank, so that it is certain that he or she can get out of the tank again. As a result, a hole needs to be dug in the pomace so that he or she can enter.
At City Winery, we have a modest ventilation and lighting system set up so that the person inside can see and is able to breathe, given the large amount of carbon dioxide within the tank.
Assistant Winemaker Bill Anton carries the basket press to the crushpad using a forklift.
Once the pomace is shoveled into the basket press, it it transported with a forklift to the crushpad, where the press will take place.
Lecomte operates the press.
There are four types of wine presses — City Winery uses a basket press to press its red wines. Wikipedia explains the basket press quite eloquently:
“A basket press consists of a large basket that is filled with the [fermented] grapes. Pressure is applied through a plate that is forced down onto the fruit. The mechanism to lower the plate is often either a screw or a hydraulic device. The juice flows through openings in the basket. The basket style press was the first type of mechanized press to be developed, and its basic design has not changed in nearly 1000 years.”
A hydraulic piston applies pressure to the fruit, pressing out juices.
City Winery sets its press for two pressure points during the press: a light press and a hard press.
The light press and hard press wines, as well as the free run wines, are all kept separate, because they generally have very different taste profiles.
The light press, or “first press” wine, flows outside the press.
Free run wine is fruity and aromatic, and as you press deeper into the fruit, the resulting press wines have increased tannins and mouthfeel.
Press wines are generally put back into the tank to ferment, because they contain residual sugars that need to be fermented. Typically press wines 1 to 0 Brix (the U.S. unit for Specific Gravity) — wines are “dry” (no sugar) at -1 to -2 Brix. This final fermentation process takes a few days to complete. The winery team closely watches the end of the fermentation stage and can warm up the tank to help the existing yeast finish the fermentation.
When both the free run and press wines are dry (without sugars), they are tasted separately, and the winemaker decides if he’d like to keep the three varied wines separate or blend them.
When free run wine is well-balanced, the winemaker keeps it separate. If the tannins are too tight or the wine has a light mid-palate, though, the press wine is usually blended in.
The decision on whether to blend or not is “based uniquely on the taste of the wine,” says Winemaker David Lecomte. He noted that from a practical point of view, it would make sense to blend all of the wines together, so that his team wouldn’t have to track the wines in separate lots.
However, the focus is on making the best wines possible, so blending is based on taste, not logistics. In a case where the team is unsure of whether there is an interest in blending back the press wines with the free run, they run a blind tasting, as not to be influenced by the practicalities of running a winery.
The likelihood of blending often depends on the varietal, Lecomte noted. With Cabernet Sauvignon, he often ends up blending the light press back, because a light mouthfeel can be problematic, as he’s going for a dark fruit and jam feel.
With Pinot Noir, the emphasis is on aromatic freshness and elegance, though, and the varietal can show beautifully without a long finish or mouthfeel — as a result, the press wine is usually not blended back in.
Cellar Hand Sikou Nikate and wine aficionado Lane remove the dry pomace from the press.
When all of the pressing is finished, the dry pomace remaining is the press is removed and disposed of.
And voila, you’re closer to a finished wine product!
This week, I want to take you behind the scenes into our kitchen to discuss one of our favorite purveyors—Rain Crow Ranch, a great family-owned farm in southern Missouri. Rain Crow supplies all our beef, and it is 100% grass-fed, free-range, and hormone & antibiotic-free.
