Step One: Winemaking 101

On your initial visit to our facility, we'll discuss your "Grape Expectations", varietals, styles, equipment, procedures, session scheduling and any other questions you may have.

Step Two: Smashing Good Time

It's a bad day to be a grape.  After a lesson in the operation of our state of the art equipment, you will load your selected grapes into the crusher/de-stemmer. The(crushed grapes) will then be pumped into a fermentation tub and the primary fermentation will be initiated.  Adjustments and measurements will be made and the session will continue with a discussion of the effects of yeast and maceration during the process.

Step Three: Meet The Press

One to two weeks after primary fermentation begins, you will return and press the juice from the must.  This process utilizes a traditional hydraulic wine press, not the "I Love Lucy" grape stomp.  Your friends will thank you later.  The free run juice and press juice is pumped into a 53 gallon oak barrel to start the aging process.

Step Four: Nice Rack

After a few months, you return to rack the wine.  During the racking process, the wine is pumped into a stainless steel tank.  The lees(sediment) is washed from the barrel and the wine is reintroduced into the fresh barrel where the final aging process continues.  The barrel is toped off and put back into storage.

Step Five: Con-Graduation Day

For your final session, with the aid of a gravity filler, you will load the wine into sterilized bottles, cork the bottles with a manual press and finally, shrink wrap a decorative, protective capsule on the neck of your 240 bottles of joy.  You can now enjoy the fruits of your labor...the work may be over, but not the fantastic memories!