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OUR WINEMAKING

Each stage in a grape’s journey, from bloom to bottling, expresses itself in a wine. Our job is to make choices that reveal these details.

In producing Pinot noir, Mark creates wines that have a sense of place. His wines have a balance of flavors, acidity, and most importantly, texture to pair with food.

A true expression of Place is not found in overt fruit or sweet oak notes. It is mainly expressed in secondary notes: spicy, floral, earthy, and savory facets. The texture is paramount. How a wine feels on your palate, where you taste it, how it lingers, and its density all reveal the expression of a specific place.

We work with new oak. Modest use of new oak can support a wine and create a more precise expression. However, we find that a barrel’s sweet and smoky oak aromas and flavors can obscure terroir. We intend for you to taste the wine and not the oak.

The winery was built to help us make wine more naturally, using minimal technology. We fill the fermenters and bottle by gravity flow. Our barrels rest in an underground room with naturally controlled temperature and humidity. The barrels are never moved during their aging, nor is any machinery allowed in the barrel cellar; all work is done by hand. We believe that simplicity in this process allows the wine’s personality to be fully expressed.

Mark testing the wine in barrel during the winemaking process
A Note About The 2020 Vintage »

We believe Pinot noir is uniquely capable of capturing a sense of the place it is grown, the charactor of the vintage, and its gift of pairing with a wide variety of food. Philosophically, we look both to the New and Old World for inspiration. We believe that each decision, from bloom to bottling, expresses itself in a wine. Our job is to make choices that reveal those details.

To accomplish this, our winemaker oversees all stages of the wine’s evolution: the management of the grapes through their final ripening, the way the grapes are extracted during fermentation, and the maturation during aging.  Small decisions move the young wine in the desired direction and each wine has distinct textural details and flavors that reveal its unique story. All of these are based on tasting the grapes and then the wine as it moves through its life form vine to bottle.

Mark picks ripe fruit at the point of maximum flavor complexity. This occurs at a moment that is short lived. To do that, he walks through all the vineyard blocks tasting small samples of berries to examine their juice flavor, skin tannins, balance of acidity, and texture of fruit. He also evaluates the level of dehydration and examines the fruit for disease that might need treatment or expedite harvest. Once in the winery, the fruit is sorted by hand.

Fermentation proceeds naturally for all the wines. While fermenting on the skins, Pinot noir extracts flavor and tannin. When the intended balance of flavor and tannins is achieved – and this is unique to each site – the grapes are gently pressed and then settled to remove most of the yeast solids.  We age the Pinot noir in a combination of new and used barrels for 11-16 months. New French oak barrels are only used to define and support the vineyard’s terroir, not to create a distinct oaky profile in the wine. The white wines are aged in stainless steel and used barrels. No new barrels are used for our white wines.

The winery was built to help us make wine more naturally, using minimal technology. We fill the fermenters and bottle by gravity flow. Our barrels rest in an underground room with naturally controlled temperature and humidity. Mark believes that simplicity in this process allows the wine’s personality to be fully expressed. The barrels are never moved during their aging, nor is any machinery allowed in the barrel cellar; all work is done by hand.

Our Winemaker, Mark Vlossak has received many accolades and awards over the years. Despite his continued success and respect within the wine community, Mark has been committed to providing wine at a price point that is accessible to all potential customers. He has had a longstanding love affair with food and wine and believes that this experience should be available to all.

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