Our philosophy in the cellar is to gently guide the fruit through the fermentation process and into barrel. That being said, our winemaking style isn't really a style per se. We routinely tweak our winemaking protocol depending on what the vintage gives us and constantly experiment with new techniques and equipment. There is no absolute, perfect way to make wine due to the dizzying array of variables that we face every year. You can't make wine from a recipe. You've got to be intuitive and listen to what the grapes are telling you when they show up at the door and react accordingly. However, there are some constants that ring true in the way that we treat the grapes during harvest.
Typically, the grapes will be destemmed slowly and not crushed to get as many whole berries in the fermentation as possible. Depending on cluster maturity, some lots will get a percentage of whole clusers added to the destemmed fruit. Sulfur dioxide will be added to the fermentation bin. This will kill or reduce the population of micro-organisms in the bin; keep the must from oxidizing, and also help to select for the wine yeast, saccharomyces cerevisiae. We typically cold soak our fermenters for as many as 10 days at a temperature of 45 to 50 degrees. This helps to extract color from the skins in an environment without alcohol. That way, the seeds won't break down and release their bitter tannins. Pinot Noir also has a habbit of racing through the fermentation too quickly and ruining your chance to extract what you need before fermentation ends.
