v&wm julyaugust 2016

WWW.VWMMEDIA.COMJULY - AUGUST 2016 NORTH AMERICA’S LEADING INDEPENDENT WINE TRADE PUBLICATION

The Dawn of AgtechWinemaking NutrientsAnnual Suppliers Guide

Here Come the Italians!

4 VINEYARD & WINERY MANAGEMENT | July - Aug 2016 www.vwmmedia.com

ON THE COVER: California wineries

are experiencing a

Renaissance surrounding

Italian grape varieties.

Design by Chris Sittner

WWW.VWMMEDIA.COMJULY - AUGUST 2016 NORTH AMERICA’S LEADING INDEPENDENT WINE TRADE PUBLICATION

The Dawn of AgtechWinemaking NutrientsAnnual Suppliers Guide

Here Come the Italians!

COVER STORY: Here Come the Italians!Resurgence in the popularity of Italian varieties is fueling a demand that growers and winemakers are happy to fulfill. By Laura Ness

VINEYARD & WINERY

Vessels of ChangeLet your choice of tank material, size and shape carry your wine toward where you need it to be. By Linda Dailey Paulson

Timing Is EverythingWinemaking nutrients and a close watch on fermentation can make or break your end results. By Dr. Jamie Goode

The Dawn of AgtechAgricultural drones may be creating plenty of buzz, but their terrestrial cousins — the robots — are poised to make their commercial debut. By Deborah Parker Wong

Rethinking Post-Veraison IrrigationScience disproves centuries-old tradition of withholding pre-harvest irrigation from vines. By Melissa Hansen, Washington State Wine

Annual Suppliers GuideV&WM’s guide to the industry’s top product and service providers.

MANAGEMENT

The Art of the BottleWine producers are commissioning imaginative bottles for high-end, limited-edition wines destined for high prices and loyal members. By Danielle Beurteaux

Following Through on a PromiseTailoring the right distribution and shipping strategy for your labels is the key to ensuring a quality customer experience. By Tom Wilmes

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MANAGEMENT

Chairman/CEO | Robert Merletti

EDITORIAL

Editor-in-Chief | Julie Fadda Powers

Columns Editor | Gary Werner

COLUMNISTS

Marketing/PR | Jennifer Strailey

Retail/Restaurant | Tim Teichgraeber

Eastern Correspondent | Marguerite Thomas

Northwest Correspondent | Sean P. Sullivan

End Post | Tyler Colman

CONTRIBUTING WRITERS

Spotlight Editor | Jennifer Strailey

Deborah Parker Wong, Danielle Beurteaux,

Janice Cessna, Linda Dailey Paulson, Dr. Jamie Goode,

Laura Ness, Melissa Hansen, Tom Wilmes, Carl Giavanti,

Diana Laczkowski, Jessica Nall, Nell Clement

PRODUCTION

Design & Production Manager | Chris Sittner

Printer | Modern Litho/Brown Printing, Jefferson City, MO

SALES

Director of Sales | Ethan Simon

(707) 577-7700 x 110, [email protected]

ADMINISTRATION & MARKETING

Circulation Manager | Leda Wagner

Advertising/Office Manager | Kathleen Kelly

ACCOUNTING & FINANCE

Gary Whitaker CPA

TRADE SHOWS, SEMINARS & WINE COMPETITIONS

Director of Wine Competitions | Debra Del Fiorentino

Wine Competitions Coordinator | Jil Child

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FOUNDERS AND PUBLISHERS EMERITUS

J. William Moffett & Hope Merletti


tion. The taste of wood imparted by barrels or casks can be either a pos-itive or negative attribute. Those who object to it say the wood note covers the fruit. Some find the heat loss from wood greater than cement. Other drawbacks include

and aging: clay, concrete, plastic, wood and steel. These come in all shapes and sizes, and each nuance creates and contours the resulting beverage.

What’s the best material to use? “It depends entirely on the type and style of wine you wish to make,” says Bruce Zoecklein, emeritus enology professor at Vir-ginia Tech. Tank selection starts with the grape cultivars to be used and processing variables. Variables included fitting placements, meth-od of heat exchange, cap manage-ment, dejuicing ease, fermentation with wood, lees management, mix-ing ability, storage vs. fermenta-tion and so forth. The material from which a tank is constructed affects temperature and factors such as oxygen transfer, natural microoxy-genation and alcohol convection currents (mixing).

Woods, including oak and red-wood, have been a traditional part of winemaking for centuries, used for both fermentation and matura-

he language surrounding wine is replete with hyper-bole and lengthy strings of adjectives designed to com-

municate its hints, nuances, char-acteristics, taste and appearance. While much of that’s related to the poetry-inspiring vineyard vistas surrounding the fruit that’s trans-formed into wine, relatively few effusive odes are directed at the tanks in which that alchemy occurs.

Yet the tank material selected for fermenting and maturation plays just as much a role in whether the resulting wine mumbles or emerg-es in a full-tilt diva belt, like Luciano Pavarotti or Lady Gaga. A specific tank can impart a lively versus ster-ile taste or create a simple versus complex body.

TYPES OF VESSELS

A tank. A vat. A container. All these utilitarian terms are apt, but winemakers have an array of mate-rials at their disposal for fermenting

+ Determining what material to use depends on the type and style of wine you want to make.

+ Main choices include wood, steel, concrete, clay and plastics.

+ Each has pros and cons to consider.

+ Cost concerns can help aid in your decision.

AT A GLANCE

Let your choice of tank material, size and shape carry

your wine toward where you need it to be.

BY LINDA DAILEY PAULSON

Law Estate Wines in Paso Robles, Calif., which specializes in Rhone-style blends, has 22 concrete tanks from Sonoma Cast Stone, which manu-factures custom-made, sustainably built tanks. [Photo by Ron Bez]

www.vwmmedia.com July - Aug 2016 | VINEYARD & WINERY MANAGEMENT 43

the difficulty associated with clean-ing and/or sanitizing, and that the material is leak prone. It is, how-ever, less expensive compared to other materials.

Once an extremely common “Old World” material, concrete tanks are regaining a place in the winery. These types of tanks fell out of favor based on the increased calcium leaching from direct con-tact with the cement.

Today’s concrete tanks aren’t fabricated from the same materials as those widely used in the 1970s, says Zoecklein. These new tanks are less expensive than stainless, he notes, and the material has dif-ferent heat transfer characteristics. Cement is typically perceived as being tough to clean and sanitize; however, the availability of improved tank materials and coatings has caused winemakers to reconsider concrete tanks. Some are doing so enthusiastically. Those who use

winery and can hold larger quanti-ties. But it also rapidly transfers heat and can transfer light and oxy-gen, which can affect the wine.

“The primary advantage [of plastic or fiberglass] is cost,” says Zoecklein. “The disadvantage is that they may not be suitable for long-term aging due to oxygen transmission. The price per gallon is less than with concrete or stain-less steel.”

MAKING SELECTIONS

The tank material selection is ultimately determined by the style of wine and methods the winemaker intends to employ, says Gerhard Ziemer, regional sales manager at Artisan Barrels & Tanks, which sells a range of stainless steel, concrete and oak products. He sees concrete used in boutique settings for reserve or other top-tier wine production.

concrete appreciate less heat loss and a microoxygenation effect.

Another “in” material is terra-cotta or clay, which are shaped into amphorae. Although these are typically of such a size that smaller batches can be processed, winemakers using these materials praise it for its ability to breathe, saying it imparts a “live” quality to the wine and lets the entire charac-ter of the fruit express itself. (See “A New Heyday for Clay,” March/April 2016.)

Stainless is a common tank material, lauded for its impervious construction. In addition to being leakproof, it can be easily cleaned and made into larger sizes. But winemakers describe the wines spending time in these tanks as having an inert or sterile quality.

Finally, there’s the material of the modern age: plastic or fiber-glass. It ’s inexpensive, easi ly cleaned, easier to shift around the

Albrigi from ColloPack The closer you get, the better it looks

• Multiple unique features inside and out provide distinct advantages. Bright annealed finished stainless steel, rolled and polished seams, pickled and passivated surfaces for ease and efficiency of cleaning.

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At Okanagan Crush Pad, which produces roughly 35,000 cases per year, clients can use stainless steel tanks ranging in size from 1,000 to 14,000 L; two- to three-ton, open-top fermenters for red punch-downs; 1,800 L Sonoma Cast Stone eggs and 4,000 to 4,500 L Nico Velo Cylindrical and Tulipe tanks as well as 800 L amphorae. This lets clients pick and choose readily between concrete fermentation and aging, stainless or oak treatment, says Dumayne.

“Stainless is a great tool,” says Ziemer. “Most wineries don’t change completely to oak and con-crete. That’s a rarity.”

Comparative evaluations by winemakers using juice from the same crush in different tanks shapes the prevailing contemporary opinion of these vessels. Experi-mentation is leading winemakers to segment even their own offer-ings to take advantage of the differ-ent characteristics these materials impart to the wines they make.

Concrete vessels are a favorite of Matt Dumayne, winemaker at Okanagan Crush Pad, a family-run custom crush winery located in Summerland, B.C., after working with these tanks for roughly four years. “They have thick walls that act as excellent insulation as well as heat transference during fermen-tation,” he says. “They’re slightly porous, so they offer great aging without outside flavor influences.”

“Our Haywire brand is 8,000 cases and uses exclusively con-crete,” says Dumayne. The con-crete helps “gain texture and richness on the palate, which con-crete is very good at without the additional flavors of oak. We’re high-lighting the fruit from our organic vineyards, making regional and sub-regional wines from the Okanagan Valley that should not be replicating other areas’ styles or techniques.”

Winemakers are increasingly working with smaller batches using

Okanagan Crush Pad Winemaker Matt Dumayne favors concrete tanks for highlighting the flavor of the winery’s organic fruit.

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organic grapes or wild yeasts, or experimenting with unfined and unfiltered wine in various ves-sels. Dumayne is among them. He conducts trials for every vintage, using the same grapes and juice across concrete, oak, stainless and amphora. Varieties change each year. Those experiments haven’t swayed Dumayne from his prefer-ence for concrete.

“Concrete tends to add many layers of complexity to the aromas. The palate is texturally enhanced and adds a significant creaminess along with vitality and fresh, juicy acidity to the wine,” he says. “I leave wines on gross lees for as long as possible to add to the pal-ate weight and complexity. Pinot Noir and Pinot Gris stay in tank for 11 months. Sauvignon Blanc can be eight to 10 months. Rosé comes out after about six. Concrete tanks are fantastic, as I can have red wine in them, empty and rinse, and have white wine in them immediately with no color staining.”

AMPHORAE

At Beckham Esta te Vine-yard, there’s an unusual synergy between the tanks and wines as Andrew Beckham crafts both the wines and the vessels in which they’re made. He’s making a mod-

storing and prepared with a very acidic solution. Additionally, some users may find them cumbersome and too fragile for commercial use.

An advantage to both mak-ing and using the amphorae, says Beckham, is that “if there’s a microbial problem, we have access to kilns. We can nuke anything that

ern clay amphora with properties “similar to concrete because of porosity.” Beckham says, “I’m ter-ribly excited about how our wines are coming out of our containers. This is something that’s very new for Oregon and the United States. Very few vineyards are making commercial wines in clay vessels.”

Beckham is quick to add that his work is “not an experiment.” He and his team are using techniques practiced for thousands of years and are making vessels at his Sher-wood studio as large as 200 gal-lons. “The amphorae are marvelous insulators. They stay cool for 21 to 30 days versus 10 days. The wines are very different. They have more energy and tension due to the cool-er, prolonged extraction.”

The wines Beckham is making aren’t additive wines and he uses organically farmed grapes: Ries-ling, Chardonnay, Pinot Gris, Pinot Noir, Malbec and Grenache. Some of these are very delicate, says Beckham, “if you clobber the fruit with other components, it starts to impede the characteristics.” He notes that white wines, for exam-ple, “do really well in the beeswax-lined vessels. We’re trying to let the fruit be super expressive.”

Care and cleaning associated with clay vessels is more intensive. They have to be fully dried before

Winemaker Andrew Beckham of Beckham Estate Vineyard crafts amphorae vessels for his wines.

www.flextankusa.com 877 407 3348 | [email protected] designed and manufactured in the USA. Tanks are manufactured in and ship from Vancouver WA 98682

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A Full Line of tanks for start-ups to large scale expansions

ORION528 Gallons / 2,000 Liters Principally designed as a 2 ton closed fermentor the ORION™ tank may also be used for long term storage. As a fermentor the ORION offers a number of advantages over open bin ferments.

A current trend in winemaking is the Egg shaped tank. Winemakers report superior fermentation results in these tanks due to the shape promoting both internal convection mixing and cap concentration.


would be a huge game changer.” Typically, the vessels season and improve over time with use, he says, adding tartrates and building more character.

Another variable with which some winemakers are experiment-ing is tank shape. Square-shaped tanks may be more space efficient. Concrete, for example, is available in several confirmations including conical and egg-shaped. “There may be some differences in wines pro-duced by these vessels” as a result of shape, says Zoecklein. “Those differences may be transitory.”

WHAT CONSUMERS WANT

Does marketing or appealing to the consumer’s imagination factor into selecting a tank material? Opin-ion is divided, but most experts say customers are most interested in drinking a wine that’s well made and tastes good. Both Beckham Estate Vineyard and Okanagan Crush Pad offer wines made from the same juice in different vessels for customers to compare.

“Now that the wines [made in clay vessels] are coming to mar-ket,” says Beckham, “they’re backing the story up.” Dumayne concurs, saying wines made in con-crete sell at a 10:1 ratio.

Clay vessels with and without glazing are getting a lot of atten-tion. Like some concrete tanks, they provide some natural micro-oxygenation that may soften the texture of some wines. Rather than comparing apples to oranges — which these different materials are, in some respects — Zoeck-lein says winemakers should be asking the fundamental question: “What vessels are most suitable for developing the type and style of wine desired?”

Linda Dailey Paulson is a writer based in Portland, Ore. During her career she has covered water and agriculture as well as the wine industry for various newspapers and trade publications.

Comments? Please e-mail us at [email protected].

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