Tag Archive for 'Chardonnay'

Stirring, Topping, and Bottling

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joanie
on June 28, 2008
in Bottling, Joanie Hudson and Topping Barrels
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This past week was an important and busy one in production.  In the beginning of the week the team went through out Chardonnay barrels and stirred and topped each of them.  The second half of the week saw the beginnings of bottling 22,000 cases of our 2007 Santa Barbara County Chardonnay.  ”Every two weeks we will top,” says assistant winemaker Ryan Ralston.  

This is due to the fact that when you age wines in an oak vessel about 1 pint of wine evaporates out of each barrel every two weeks.  The air space in each vessel, aka the ulage, gives us the perfect opportunity to stir before we top.  We stir to age our wines on the lees, which reintroduces sediment back into the wine giving a rounder mouthfeel.  The lees are the solids left after fermentation that fall to the bottom of the barrel as it ages.  

The other option winemakers have for dealing with the lees is to “rack” the wine into another barrel.  Stirring and topping also allows the winemakers to check and monitor every barrel on a regular basis.  We keep the lots pure by always topping each wine with itself. 

In the Santa Barbara Winery Tasting Room during the week you can hear the clanking of the hundreds of bottles going down the bottling line throughout the entire day.

Joanie Hudson, Assistant Tasting Room Manager, Santa Barbara Winery

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The New Patio at Lafond Winery

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Pierre
on June 11, 2008
in Lafond Winery, Special Events, Weddings and Wine News
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We are completing a new patio which, for lack of a better name, we are calling our VIP Patio. But stay tuned, we will certainly need to come up with a better name.

We built on the side of the winery as you approach from Santa Rosa Road. In Santa Rita Hills you are almost guaranteed to have wind. It you usually comes up before noon and lasts until late afternoon or until the fog rolls in. We think of it as invigorating but for many it creates havoc with tablecloths and light plastic or paper tableware. The wind brings in the ocean breeze and cools the vineyard and makes possible the fantastic Pinot Noir and Chardonnay that we grow here.

The Patio is connected to the production winery through what we always referred as the VIP room, thus the name of the patio — for now. The Patio is surrounded by a wall and since it is on the leeward side of the winery it affords a great deal of wind protection.

We hope to use it for small groups, that can be catered, of up to 50 people, preferably less.
Call Mirella Valdez, our Tasting Room Manager, for additional information 805.688.7921.
Click the images to enlarge:

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Lafond Vineyards in the Santa Rita Hills

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Pierre
on June 7, 2008
in Chardonnay, Lafond Winery and Vineyard
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A view of the Lafond Vineyards taken today June 7, 2008. In the foreground our older vineyard on the north side of the Santa Ynez river And in the background on the south side of the river the newer vineyard and the winery. By clicking the image and enlarging it you can barely distinguish it up against the hills. In between our neighbor Hilltop Vineyards which supplies us with Chardonnay and some Syrah. The Santa Rita Hills have turned brown, as they always do in June, and the river, although there is a flow, is easy to cross with our tractors and ATVs. 
Click image to enlarge:

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Cold Stabilizing Chardonnay at Santa Barbara Winery

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joanie
on June 2, 2008
in Articles on Wine and Vineyards, Chardonnay, Joanie Hudson and Santa Barbara Winery
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We are witnessing winter being brought back to the cellar in the beginning of summer here at the winery.  Fourteen of our stainless steel tanks are filled to capacity with 51,000 gallons of our 2007 Santa Barbara County Chardonnay.  The wine is currently going through the cold stabilization process.  During this step of the white wine making process, the wine is chilled down to 32 degrees F in order to remove all tartrates (also known as “wine diamonds“).  These tartrates form when the wine gets too cold.  While they are natural sediment and completely harmless, they can sometimes be cause for consumer dissatisfaction.  So in order to prevent this, winemakers force the tartrate crystals to form at the winery bringing them out of solution so that they can be filtered out before bottling.  The thermal mass of 51,000 gallons at 32 degrees chills the entire building.

Our Assistant Winemaker Ryan tells me that the next step is to “seed the wine with cream of tartar,” which gives the tartrates something to grab onto as they fall to the bottom of the tank.  Once they do this, keeping tanks at 32 degrees, the next step is to filter the wine at .2 microns, removing the tartrates from solution.  Once filtering is completed, the wines will be warmed up to over 55 degrees and the bottling process will begin, leaving us with a “crisp, clean, wonderful Santa Barbara County Chardonnay for a very reasonable price,” says Ryan.  Until then, and while the icicles continue to form on the outside of the steel tanks, I will be wearing my mittens in the winery.

Joanie Hudson, Assistant Tasting Room Manager, Santa Barbara Winery

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Planting Chardonnay Lafond Vineyard

Published
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Pierre
on April 29, 2008
in Chardonnay, New Planting and Wine News
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This week we started planting our new Chardonnay block – a little over 10 acres. We are using 5 different clones — some of these clones are already in some of our older blocks, and a few that are new to us, but have been tested in other vineyards in the Santa Rita Hills.

First the ground is softened by drip irrigation, although this may not really be necessary — the soil is very sandy – which we think ideal for Chardonnay. The Chardonnay has been grafted to a root stock that is well adapted to our soil — disease resistant, not too vigorous and good in sand.

Organic mulch is added at each vine location, hopefully to jump-start the plant’s growth. The vine is then planted and enclosed in a growth tube to protect it from the fierce winds and the blowing sand which are common in the Santa Rita Hills.

The first year is dedicated to establishing the vine — growing a solid root system. The following winter the vine is cut back to two buds — almost to where it started. The growth tube remains during the second year until the vine grows out of the tube and can be trained on the wire. The third year we get a small crop. Maybe.

The thumbnails show the planting sequence. Click to enlarge:


 

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Checking for Malolactic at Lafond Winery

Published
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Pierre
on April 29, 2008
in Articles on Wine and Vineyards, Lafond Winery and Wine News
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Winemaker Bruce MaGuire periodically checks the red wines from the 2007 harvest for completion of malolactic fermentation. Some varieties will undergo this secondary fermentation, the conversion of malic acid to lactic acid , very quickly. Others especially those varieties harvested late are slower to undergo this process — one reason is that, because it is later in the season, it is colder and cold inhibits fermentation.

There was a time, and not so long ago, when malolactic fermentation was not as understood as it is today – it was discouraged – with the unfortunate result that it sometimes occurred within the bottle and spoilt the wine. The benefits today, of a carefully controlled malolactic fermentation, are well recognized. And aside from a more stable wine it enriches the wine with more complex flavor and balance.

Malic acid is most easily recognized in apples. Some white wines are also encouraged to go through malolactic fermentation especially those rich buttery Chardonnays. If fruit flavors, however, are essential such as in Riesling, Rosé, and Sauvignon Blanc, the wines are kept chilled, until bottling, to prevent this from occurring.

The photo below is of Bruce in the lab, at Lafond Winery, ’spotting’ the different barrels. He puts several drops on each ’spot’ on a special paper. Each spot represents a different barrel, and when he places the paper in a solution it will tell him if the fermentation has been completed, or how far it has gone. He uses a small capillary tube, that he rests on the board at his side, to deposit the ‘drops’ on the paper. Slow but effective.

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2007 Santa Barbara County Chardonnay - The Bulldog Method

Published
by
joanie
on April 28, 2008
in Articles on Wine and Vineyards, Bottling, Chardonnay and Joanie Hudson
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If you have ever been into the tasting room and noticed the barrels that are kept in the room right behind the bar, those are not just for decoration, they are full of wine.  All of our white wine processing is done right here in our downtown facility, from grape to bottle.  Right now we are tanking up the 2007 Santa Barbara County Chardonnay out of barrel, prepping it to be bottled in about two months. 

This tanking process is very meticulous as it requires efficiency and timeliness in moving the wine around.  The barrels are first pulled from the barrel room by a forklift.  Next, our winemakers sort through these barrels, sampling them to decide which barrels are going to be used in the Santa Barbara Chardonnay, and which will be saved for our other Chardonnays. 

To get the wine from barrel into tank, a method called “Bulldogging” is used.  This refers to the apparatus, The Bulldog, that is used to pressure the barrels using Nitrogen.  If you pressurize the barrels in this manner, the wine is pushed out by the inert gas through the hose.  By not using a pump to transfer the wine into tank, any oxygen uptake into the wine is reduced.  According to our Assistant Winemaker Ryan, this “raises the freshness factor of the wine tremendously.”  Over the past 10 years, Ryan has honed his skill for moving wine around, and he has developed techniques in speeding that process along. 

Right now we also have an allotment of 2006 red wines getting prepped for bottling.

2006 Primitivo Joughin Vineyard

2006 Sangiovese Stolpman Vineyard

2006 Nebbiolo Stolpman Vineyard

2006 Lagrein Joughin Vineyard

2006 Negrette Joughin Vineyard

2006 Syrah Santa Ynez Valley

Joanie Hudson, Assistant Tasting Room Manager

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