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New Winery Guest Cottage

Friday, March 18th

For a weekend filled with wine tasting, stay conveniently in the middle of the beautiful Edna Valley on the California Central Coast. Come join us at our new Winery Guest Cottage! This quaint property occupies half of the original farmhouse on the Claiborne & Churchill property and was restored in 2015 with new appliances, floors, and furnishings for your comfort.  The cottage’s charm and character is sure to make your trip extra special. The location is perfect next to our tasting room and vineyards on Highway 227 that runs through the valley.

The cottage comfortably sleeps four people in two bedrooms with queen beds. The single bathroom is complete with a tub and shower. It also includes a full kitchen allowing you the opportunity to cook your own meals during your stay to pair with some of the best wines our our SLO Wine Country has to offer.

Other accommodations include washer, dryer, towels, linens, wifi, television, heating, dining for four, and personal outdoor area. It offers more amenities than a hotel room provides in over 700 square feet.

The Winery Guest Cottage is surrounded by Edna wineries, tourist attractions, theaters, restaurants, festivals, museums, antiquing, shopping, hiking trails, golf courses, and even more activities listed here. With this long list of available activities, there is plenty for you to experience.

One of the greatest benefits of this cottage is the incomparable views. From the living room and front porch, you can see the sweeping green hills and rolling vineyards across the valley in front of the foothills of the Los Padres National Forest.

To make the deal even sweeter, our Claiborne & Churchill Cellar Club members will be offered a special, discounted price on their stays.

We can’t wait to help you make this unique experience possible. Click on this link to see our VRBO listing at www.vrbo.com/820452  or contact Elizabeth at Elizabeth@claibornechurchill.com.

Claiborne & Churchill Wine Library Weekend

Wednesday, March 2nd

Spring is on its way, and that means one of our favorite events of the year is around the bend! If you have never attended our annual Claiborne & Churchill Wine Library Weekend, you’re in for a treat. We’re pulling out our favorite vintages from the last decade – wines that have been waiting for their perfect moment to shine! Our Wine Library Winemaker Dinner on Friday, March 11 with Executive Chef Russell Thomas of Two Cooks Catering on Friday, March 11 is sold out, but we still have tickets left for our other events that weekend. We will be showcasing dozens of library wines over the course of the weekend. Below are a few of the wines we are most excited about!

2006 Pinot Gris
Contrary to the belief of many, certain white wines, when made and stored well, have remarkable aging potential. This is one reason why we are so excited to show off a 2006 Pinot Gris — one of the older wines we’ll be showcasing during the Library Grand Tasting! When this wine was released a decade ago, it was youthful and fresh with stone-fruit aromas and flavors. But as a good Pinot Gris matures, it takes on increasingly smokey and nutty nuances. This is a wine you’ll want to experience for yourself.

2007 Dry Gewürztraminer
If you’ve any spent time around Claiborne & Churchill, you know our deep love of Gewürtztraminer, a wine we usually serve in its youth. When young, Gewürz is aromatic, fresh, floral, and bright. In its later years, the complexity of the varietal is showcased, giving off a golden-hued color with spicy aromas, rich flavors of passion fruit, and a legendary long finish. Aged Gewürztraminer is one of the more unique tasting experiences we offer.

2008 Classic Pinot Noir
If you’ve wondered about the aging potential of our Pinot Noir, the 2008 Classic Pinot is the proof you are looking for. This wine won plenty of awards in its early days, showcasing ample fruit and a deep garnet color while maintaining a restrained elegance. With 8 years of bottle age on it, the 2008 Classic is burgundy-brown with herbaceous aromas and flavors of cranberry skins, pomegranate, and brown sugar. The long finish is smooth and velvety. This is a Pinot in its prime!

2006 Nektar (Late Harvest Riesling)
Are you on the fence about dessert wine? There is no better time than at our tasting to experience the remarkable, time-honored tradition of a fine, aged Late Harvest Riesling. Made in a style of an ice wine, our 2006 Nektar was pretty special at the time, and is even more exceptional after ten years of maturity in the bottle. Golden in color with a creamy and balanced mouthfeel, the 2006 Nektar has aromas of apple pie and flavors of cider and ripened peach. These wines are just a handful of the diverse offerings featured at our upcoming Wine Library Weekend. If you are interested in trying these wines and more, join us March 12-13 at one of our featured events! Ticket information below.

Upcoming Event: Claiborne & Churchill Wine Library Weekend
March 11-13, 2016

Wine Library Grand Tasting
March 12, 2016, 1-4 pm

Experience a tasting showcasing the best vintages of our library wines. You’ll have the opportunity to taste from among two dozen white and red wines which have been carefully cellared for several years. Love what you tried? You’ll also have the opportunity to purchase these wines and bring them home with you!

Price $15 Club | $25 General Admission → For Tickets, please click here.

Wine and Cheese Pairing (Featuring Library Wines)
March 13, 2016, 1-4 pm

“Wine down” on Sunday in our garden patio with a flight of library wines and a gourmet cheese plate featuring artisanal, European cheeses curated by Fromagerie Sophie. Each cheese has been specially selected to pair with these stellar library wines, poured at the peak of their aging potential. Don’t miss this special event!

$15 Club | $20 General Admission → For Tickets, please click here.

The Guest Cottage at Claiborne & Churchill is available for our Wine Library Weekend!

The Guest Cottage at Claiborne & Churchill Winery is conveniently located in the heart of wine country, just minutes from historic San Luis Obispo, the charming village of Arroyo Grande and the oceanfront town of Pismo Beach.  This charming two bedroom one bath guest house offers picturesque vineyard and mountain views and is the perfect place to relax and “wine-down”. Please visit VRBO/Homeaway Listing #820452, or email elizabeth@claibornechurchill.com for rates and more information. Claiborne & Churchill Cellar Club members will be offered a special, discounted price on their stays.

Cheese Plate from Fromagerie Sophie (part III)

Saturday, January 30th

Read below for a description of each Fromagerie Sophie and Claiborne & Churchill pairing, and if you like the sound of these, come in to our tasting room today to try them! See our Wine and Cheese Pairing Part I and II here.

4. 2013 Runestone Pinot Noir with Selles Sur Cher

When we had our staff tasting with Fromagerie Sophie, we learned that wine and cheese pairings should be complementary, delicious, and memorable, but that the best pairings are surprising. You can’t go wrong with goat cheese and Pinot, but this pairing of Claiborne & Churchill Runestone Pinot Noir and elegant Selles Sur Cher, a soft, french goat’s milk cheese dusted in black vegetable ash, really shocked us, and in a good way. Like the Runestone Pinot, this cheese has a long, fascinating finish that develops in the mouth over time.

The Mold and the Beautiful

The use of ash in cheesemaking is a technique that’s hundreds of years old. Originally meant to preserve the surface of young cheeses, it is now known that the use of ash helps in the development of beautiful, distinct surface molds, like those that you will find in this Selles Sur Cher goat cheese.

5. 2013 Syrah with Beenleigh Blue

Nothing pairs better with a bold, spicy red wine than blue cheese, and this pairing is no exception! Beenleigh Blue is a pasteurized sheep cheese made with vegetable rennet. It comes from Sharpham Barton, in South Devon (Southwestern England). The remarkably mild, elegant blue-veined cheese has unique, sweet aromas of nectar and honeysuckle, and its semi-soft, fudgy, flaky texture reminds us a bit of coconut. Only a few bottles left of this delicious Syrah!

All About Ewe

According to one of Beenleigh’s distributors – Neal’s Dairy Yard, in the UK – the milk for this English cheese comes from a flock of 250 ewes who graze on grass and clovers in the summer. Based on the time of year the cheese is made, it may take on distinct flavor characteristics: winter cheeses are more light and citrusy, while summer cheeses are more robust and earthy.

Enjoy these Pairings With Us

These pairings are a truly remarkable way to experience our fine wines and the incredible cheeses that Sophie and Paul have scoured the world for, bringing the best that Europe has to offer here to our little town on the Central Coast. Come experience these pairings daily at our Claiborne & Churchill tasting room, open daily from 11-5, and when you are done, stop by Fromagerie Sophie on Garden Street and pick up some cheese to pair with wines at your next gathering!

Wine Tasting Flight: $12 (Free for Cellar Club)

Cheese Plate with Pairing Guide: Small $12 ($9 for Cellar Club)

See our Wine and Cheese Pairing Part I and II here. Hope to see you in the tasting room soon!

Cheese Plates from Fromagerie Sophie (part II)

Wednesday, January 27th

2. 2014 Dry Riesling with Gorwydd Caerphilly

Claiborne & Churchill Dry Riesling, one of our most popular wines, is a surprising and satisfying complement to this raw cow Caerphilly from Somerset, England. Caerphilly is a mold-ripened, cow’s milk cheese traditionally eaten for lunch in old times by Welsh coal miners. Originating in Wales, it is now made primarily in Somerset, England. This cheese has rich, earthy, savory, and creamy flavors and a moist and slightly crumbling texture.

Fun Fact: It’s Alive!

With this cheese, make sure you taste the rind. You’ll note that the cheese appears to have a layered, varicolored appearance. In this semi-aged cheese, these distinctions in appearance and flavor come from proteolysis – the process by which proteins, under the rind, are broken down by enzymes. This happens from the outside in, giving the rind its musty, earthy flavor, and the cream just beneath rind an oozy, mushroomy quality.

3. 2014 Pinot Gris with L’Etivaz

The ideal pairing for our full-bodied, creamy-textured Pinot Gris, this unpasteurized cow’s milk cheese from Switzerland is not to be confused with “swiss cheese” (the bland one with the holes). This alpine cheese is famous for its smooth, creamy texture and robust flavor, achievable only in the alps, where it is made when the alpine cows are grazing on flowers in high, summer pastures. Today, L’Etivaz is still made in the old style, stirred in copper cauldrons over wood fires on the mountainside!

New Appellation, Old Style

In the 1930s, when the Swiss government pushed through new regulations on the production of Gruyère, several cheesemaking families broke away to preserve their traditions. Thus, we see the birth of L’Etivaz, a cheese named for the Swiss village where the co-op originated. In 1999, L’Etivaz was given the distinction of being an Appellation d’Origine Protégé, a status previously only granted to wine regions.

Enjoy these Pairings With Us

These pairings are a truly remarkable way to experience our fine wines and the incredible cheeses that Sophie and Paul have scoured the world for, bringing the best that Europe has to offer here to our little town on the Central Coast. Come experience these pairings daily at our Claiborne & Churchill tasting room, open daily from 11-5, and when you are done, stop by Fromagerie Sophie on Garden Street and pick up some cheese to pair with wines at your next gathering!

Wine Tasting Flight:
$12 (Free for Cellar Club)

Cheese Plate with Pairing Guide:
$12 ($9 for Cellar Club)

See our Wine and Cheese Pairing Part I here. Stay tuned for more cheese pairings!

Claiborne & Churchill Presents: Cheese Plates from Fromagerie Sophie

Wednesday, January 27th

If you haven’t met them, Sophie and Paul Boban-Doering are the owners of Fromagerie Sophie, a cheese shop in downtown San Luis Obispo that has quickly proven itself to be one of SLO’s most treasured and unique gems. When Sophie and Paul opened Fromagerie Sophie, the cheese game in SLO was immediately elevated, and no one is more appreciative of that then those in the local wine industry.

Here at Claiborne & Churchill, we finally have the opportunity to offer our guests a fantastic new tasting experience: a flight of five wine-paired cheeses from Fromagerie Sophie! Each pairing was painstakingly and lovingly selected, and the cheese plates are offered daily in our tasting room. Recently, our tasting staff had the pleasure of receiving an educational cheese tasting with Paul, and we couldn’t be more excited to talk about these cheeses with you and share some of the stories that he passed along to us! Each day this week, we’ll be telling stories about a different cheese from our cheese flight.

Read below for a description of each Fromagerie Sophie and Claiborne & Churchill pairing, and if you like the sound of these, come in to our tasting room today to try them!

1. 2014 Dry Gewürztraminer with L’Muse Signature Gouda

Our well loved Gewürztraminer, with its bright, spicy aromas and notes of lychee, is the perfect pairing for this caramely, aged gouda from Beemster, Holland. L’Muse Signature Gouda is aged for two years, and is deep amber in color with well-distributed protein crystals. Creamy with slightly salty, nutty notes, this cheese has a deep, complex, and long finish that sets off the bright acidity, spice, and tropical fruit of our Gewürztraminer!

What’s that crunch?

You’ll notice this cheese has some tiny, crunchy crystals in it, giving it a remarkable texture. The crystals found in exquisite aged goudas, cheddars, and grana padanos are not “salt crystals” as some suspect. Rather, they come from tyrosine, an amino acid found in cow’s milk protein. When, during the aging process, the amino acid chains break down, tyrosine is released into the cheese, forming those amazing little crunchies!

Enjoy these Pairings With Us

These pairings are a truly remarkable way to experience our fine wines and the incredible cheeses that Sophie and Paul have scoured the world for, bringing the best that Europe has to offer here to our little town on the Central Coast. Come experience these pairings daily at our Claiborne & Churchill tasting room, open daily from 11-5, and when you are done, stop by Fromagerie Sophie on Garden Street and pick up some cheese to pair with wines at your next gathering!

Wine Tasting Flight:
$12 (Free for Cellar Club)

Cheese Plate with Pairing Guide:
$12 ($9 for Cellar Club)

Stay tuned for more cheese pairings!

A New Year, a New Look, and Two New Vintages

Tuesday, January 5th

 A New Year, a New Look, and Two New Vintages

Here at Claiborne & Churchill, we want to wish you all a very happy, healthy start to your 2016! In the spirit of celebrating “the new”, we have several announcements about exciting things happening at our winery in San Luis Obispo.

Renovated Tasting Room

We opened our straw bale winery here on the Central Coast back in 1996, and since then, we’ve grown a lot! For the last few years, we have put some serious elbow grease into expanding our garden area to accommodate more guests, and now we have an updated tasting room to go with it! Our indoor renovation includes a new feature wall and rolling barn door, both made with reclaimed wood from our old dairy barn. We now also have large crystal tasting glasses, new lighting, and a beautiful, custom stone-topped bar. Be sure bring your friends — with an expanded serving area, it’s the more the merrier. Added bonus: Ladies, you’ll be more comfortable than ever. (The new bar has hooks where you can hang your bags and coats!)

Now that our garden and tasting room are all ready for 2016, we’d love to host your next private event. Contact Angela at angela@claibornechurchill.com for details and pricing.

New Website

If you’re reading this blog, you may have noticed that we recently overhauled claibornechurchill.com with the goal of making our website more usable, visually pleasant, and informative for you. Feel free to explore our site, and if you’re new to our blog, check out some of our recent posts to learn about the 2015 harvest, recent events, and more.

Guest House Available for Vacation Rental

One of the more exciting pieces of news we have is that next door, we’ve been hard at work remodeling a two-bedroom duplex cottage on our property. Soon, it will be available for vacation rental! If you are from out of town, staying with us will be a marvelous way to enjoy the heart of wine country here in San Luis Obispo. Centrally located, we’re only a five minute drive to Pismo Beach and a fifteen-minute drive to Cal Poly. Stay tuned for photos of the space and pricing information. Note: Club members will have access to a special, discounted price on accommodations!

New Releases

This holiday season, we released brand new vintages of two of our most anticipated wines: 2013 Runestone Pinot Noir  and 2014 Pinot Blanc. Be sure to come by our tasting room for a pour of each of these exciting vintages.

To all our readers, Happy New Year, and we hope to see you soon!

’Tis the Season – Holiday Events at Claiborne & Churchill Winery

Wednesday, December 2nd

We can’t believe it’s already December! We’re decking the halls of our beautiful, newly remodeled tasting room, and to celebrate the holidays and share our new space with you, we are pleased to open our doors to friends, fans, new visitors, and our wine club with two festive events this week! Come raise your glass and enjoy the holidays with us!

Holiday Open House – Open to the Public
Thursday, December 3, 2015
Time: 5:30-8:00 pm
$5 tasting fee for visitors

In the giving spirit? We’ll comp your tasting fee if you bring canned goods or an unwrapped, new toy for donation to Season of Hope!

Join us in our newly renovated tasting room for a fun-filled evening of Holiday Shopping! Enjoy a tasting of our aromatic white wines (Dry Riesling, Dry Gewürztraminer) and hand-crafted Pinot Noirs and Syrah. Enjoy our live holiday music, and take advantage of great holiday wine specials. We can even create custom gift boxes for your friends, family, and co-workers! Come hungry: The Grilled Cheese Incident food truck will be there, too, selling their delicious sandwiches!

Cellar Club Pickup Party
Sunday, December 6, 2015
Complimentary for Club Members
Time: 3-5:30pm

If you’re in our Cellar Club, we hope you’ll join us to pick up and taste our Holiday wine selection. Enjoy small bites paired with the featured wines, listed below!

To RSVP to our Pick Up Party, click here.  All members are complimentary; guest tickets available for purchase by members.

HOLIDAY WINES

2014 Dry Riesling
A favorite around here! We couldn’t resist putting it in our Cellar Club Holiday Shipment.

2014 Pinot Blanc
Grown by our friends and neighbors at Laetitia Vineyard, this delicious white wine is 100% SIP Certified. Pressed whole-cluster and then fermented in well-seasoned, neutral French oak barrels, this wine has body, richness, and bracing acidity.

2013 Runestone Pinot Noir
After years of pouring our beloved Runestone Pinot Noir under our original gold and burgundy label, we knew it was time for an update. We are so excited to unveil our beautifully repackaged 2013 Runestone Pinot Noir, available to both the C&C Cellar Club and the public.

2013 Classic Pinot Noir
This stunning and well-priced 2013 Classic Pinot Noir is available to Cellar Club only for this shipment and this shipment alone!

From all of us at Claiborne & Churchill Winery, we wish you a happy start to your holiday season, and we hope to see you this week! If you are interested in receiving more information about our Wine Club, please follow this link.

2015 Harvest Recap with Winemaker Coby Parker-Garcia

Wednesday, November 4th

Harvest 2015 has officially come to a close, and we are heading into a new season here at the winery. Despite the doomsday reports in the news about the impact of drought on California agriculture, we are really excited about what this vintage has in store. As can often happen, the dry climate this year really stressed the vines, which has led to some incredible fruit quality.

As many people have noted, picking also came early this year. One question we often get from visitors is how an early harvest impacts the wine. Does the shorter growing season have a positive or negative impact? There are different views on this, but I tend to see this as a good thing. We are looking for maturation of the fruit and proper ripeness, and whether that happens early or late does not necessarily have much impact on quality. The benefit of an early harvest is that we are able to get the fruit off the vine and process it sooner, which minimizes the risk of something going wrong. The longer the fruit hangs on the vine, the more risk we see of damage due to weather like wind, rain, and frosts, as well as harm from pests like gophers, ground squirrels, and birds. Fruit that ripens quickly is generally safe from these hazards.

This week, we officially finished up harvest as our staff lent a hand to pick the rest of our Estate late-harvest Riesling, fruit that will be used in our 2015 Nektar. It was a fun way to get our hands dirty out in the vineyard one last time as we celebrated the end of another successful season here at Claiborne & Churchill! Now, for me, things will slow down a bit as we shift from around-the-clock pressing, fermentation, and punchdowns to monitoring the wines, topping barrels, and planning our 2016 bottling schedule. Out in the vineyard, the vines are starting to lose their leaves and will soon be dormant. As for me, after the craze of crush, I’m ready for a little breather, too. I’ll be sitting here in California on the edge of my seat with a glass of Pinot in hand, waiting to see how and when this El Niño winter everyone is talking about plays out. We just had our first big storm of the season yesterday. But stay tuned: experts are saying there’s more on the way.

From all of us here at Claiborne & Churchill, we’re wishing you and your family a wonderful autumn. Stop by and visit us soon, or plan on attending one of our upcoming events! Before you know it, these 2015 wines will be ready to pour, and we can’t wait to show you what we’ve been working on. 

Event Recap: Sunset Savor the Central Coast

Monday, October 5th

Savor the Central Coast is Sunset Magazine’s annual wine and food festival, highlighting all that our unique region has to offer. For its sixth year running, Savor came to the historic Santa Margarita Ranch this weekend, and the Claiborne & Churchill Winery family joined the fun! We were thrilled to introduce C&C wines to so many new people, both locals and out of town visitors, and we truly enjoyed the offerings of our neighboring wineries, breweries, artisans restaurants, and farmers. We couldn’t wait to share some of our favorite finds with you!

Wine, Beer & Spirits

We were lucky to have a booth next to Niven Family Wines and Chamisal, and our tasting area, with lots of bar space and seating, had a great turnout! The guests seemed to really enjoy all the wines from all our Edna Valley producers. Bailayana wowed everyone with their delicious and creative wine cocktail made with their Albariño and splash of Pinot Noir! Among our winemaker Coby’s favorite libations of the weekend were the Pinot Noirs from Wrath, the Opal Saison/Farmhouse Ale from Firestone Reserve, and the spirits from Krobar Craft Distillery, a new producer in Paso Robles focusing on Gin, Neutral Brandy, and Rye Whiskey.

Eats

There were incredible gastronomic offerings at this event, but it goes without saying that Thomas Hill Organics from Paso Robles stole the show with their sliders made with ground lamb, pecorino Romano, organic arugula, house-made aioli, and perfect little buns from La Migliore bakery.

Artists & Artisans

Our manager, Angela, is notorious for returning home from events empty-handed. But this weekend, she couldn’t resist buying two prints from Teréz Tyni, local landscape painter and co-owner of Upper Crust Trattoria, a great local Italian Restaurant that has featured Claiborne wines for many years. Also worth a mention was a local jewelry producer, Olive & Poppy. Our tasting room attendant, Kate, fell in love with their ultra-hip barrel stave bangles. She talked about them all day, and then finally snagged one before the event ended.

Agriculture

Angela and the girls loved California Grown’s demonstration stage and flower booth, where guests could pick stems and foliage to make beautiful handmade arrangements. The California Fig Advisory Board’s kiosk was also a crowd favorite. There, they promoted fig cultivation in California while tempting guests with their hearty fig layer bars. Angela grabbed the recipe to share with you, included below.

Better with Every Year

Each year, Savor the Central Coast gets better and better! We couldn’t be more proud to be a part of this region, and we are grateful that Sunset has taken notice of what we already have known for a long time: that the Central Coast of California is simply the best on place on earth to live, eat, farm, and make wine. Enjoy the recipe below!

Fig Layer Bars
From the California Fig Advisory Board

INGREDIENTS

Filling
1 package (8 oz) dried California Mission figs, stemmed and finely chopped
1 cup sugar
1/2 chopped walnuts
1/2 cup hot water

Crust and Topping
1 cup butter
1 cup brown sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
1 3/4 cups rolled oats
1 3/4 cups flour, sifted
Ice water, as needed

DIRECTIONS
For filling, combine figs, sugar, walnuts and water in a small saucepan. Cook over medium heat for 15 minutes or until thickened, stirring frequently. Set aside to cool.

For crust and topping, in mixing bowl, cream butter with sugar until light and fluffy. Add salt and vanilla; beat together. Add oats and flour. Mix until blended. Press half of flour mixture evenly in bottom of lightly greased, shallow 9 by 13 inch pan. Spread filling evenly over all. Add water to remaining flour mixture and toss lightly until ball forms and cleans sides of bowl. Turn onto light floured surface and roll into rectangle to fit on top of pan and arrange on top of filling, trimming edges to fit.

Bake at 350º for 25 to 30 minutes or until lightly browned. Cool in pan. Cut 4 by 12 into 48 bars.

Serve warm with vanilla ice cream and drizzle with chocolate syrup.

Enjoy!

Were you at Savor the Central Coast this year? If you visited our booth, tag @claiborneandchurchill in your Instagram photos!

Harvest 2015 with Winemaker Coby Parker-Garcia

Tuesday, September 15th

Harvest is in full swing here at Claiborne & Churchill! This week, we tracked down Coby in the cellar and asked him all our winemaking questions about Harvest 2015.

Harvest seems to be firing on all cylinders! How much have we picked so far?
As of this week, we are 95% done with picking everything. Pinot Gris from Laetitia came in yesterday. We also got Merlot from Vintage Cowboy, which will go into the Port. Last week, we finished picking Gewürztraminer, Estate Riesling, Riesling from Talley, and Pinot Noir from Wolff. We picked some Pinot Noir early for Rosé, too, to keep that low alcohol and good acidity. Everything is looking really good so far.

Any exciting new changes?
This year, we got Pinot Noir and Chardonnay from across the street at Greengate Ranch & Vineyard. That’s the first time we’ve gotten fruit from them, and we’re stoked about that. Also, recently Twin Creeks Vineyard was granted Estate status, which is really exciting. Now we can make Estate Pinot Noir using Twin Creeks fruit.

Any cool new winemaking gadgets you are using this year?
We have a new CO2 sprayer. It’s this tank that sprays carbon dioxide snow. It’s really fun to use.

What’s it for?
We add CO2 before and after fermentation. It’s a heavier gas, so it weighs down on top of the fruit to prevent it from touching oxygen.

Why don’t you want oxygen touching the wine?
Oxygen touches the fruit and juice throughout the winemaking process. It alters the color and flavor of the wine, and has the effect of aging it. We try to minimize that wherever possible. This CO2 helps us keep the wine from oxidizing.

Can you walk us through that process?
After the fruit comes in, we process it, and then we put it into three-quarter or one-and-a-half ton fermenters. Then, we spray CO2 on top, or we can gas a whole tank with CO2 before we put the fruit in. In those cases, we fill the tank with carbon dioxide so it’s filled with heavy gas. Then when the fruit goes into the tank, it hits CO2 instead of oxygen. That is really important in preserving the quality of the wine.

We’ve heard you can use CO2 spray, or use dry ice instead. Is that true?
Yes, but dry ice chills the fruit down. If you add enough of it, it will actually lower the temperature of the must. Even though the CO2 is cold, it won’t have the same chilling effect on the fruit. Dry ice is really good, but it’s expensive. Instead of using dry ice, we pick our fruit early in the morning or late at night. When the fruit comes in, it’s already really cold, so we don’t really need to make it colder.

Doesn’t wine release it’s own carbon-dioxide during fermentation?
Yes. For example, when we are doing punchdowns, manually pushing down the cap of the wine, CO2 will come up. But as fermentation goes on, that slows down. Toward the end, very little CO2 is being made naturally. That’s where it can become a problem. When oxygen reaches the wine at that point, it can create volatile acidity and other issues. You spray the C02 over the bin, and it’s like a blanket. It keeps the wine safe.

So, it’s super important.
Yep. Really important.

Have any winemaking or harvest questions for our winemaker? Comment below, and we’ll choose a few questions to answer in later posts!