Wine Making

In the French language there is no word for winemaker. I share their philosophy that the wine makes itself with some minimal human intervention and guidance. However, to avoid confusion, I do use the English terms winemaker and winemaking.

Over the years I have found that most of the important decisions are made before fermentation. Most of our focus is in the vineyard and in the initial winemaking stages of evaluating grape maturity, selective hand picking, gentle handling, sorting and small lot fermentation. In 2002 we built a new facility just to facilitate the gentle handling and sorting of grapes.

Whites

Goal:

I enjoy white wines with a refreshing minerality. I like the weight of the wine to come from the vineyard (sap), rather than the winemaking (alcohol, oak and lees). I find that white wines best show their terroir (place) through their aromas and acidity.

Harvest:

Soil type plays a big role in my picking strategy. I find that a lighter soil will ripen grapes as much as 10 days earlier than a heavy soil. Vine age and canopy exposures also have significant influence on maturity and flavor development. Occasionally we will make several picking passes over a 2-week period, picking by visual differences in cluster color and hue. With a few exceptions our vineyards are picked by our regular staff. All grapes are hand picked into 25 pound boxes.

Crush:

The grapes are chilled in our cooler overnight and then sorted, destemed and pressed the next day. We have a variable speed sorting table that can accommodate up to 8 workers. Sorting can be painfully slow or very fast depending on the condition of the grapes. In a wet year, sorting out rot will make the process painfully slow. The grapes then fall into our destemmer and may or may not be crushed depending on the desired influence of the skins. Skins can contribute wonderful aromas, but can also give an undesired phenolic load (bitterness). I evaluate by tasting the skins. Previous history of individual blocks also has great influence on the degree of crushing I will give to the berries. Destemed grapes fall through a chute by gravity into the press. We have two 1500-liter Wilmes pneumatic presses that I love because of the gentle juice extraction and manual control. I typically have three press fractions: free run, light press and hard press. I consider the free run to be the highest quality, although the light press can add some nice dimension and can be a useful blending tool. Hard press juice is typically sold in bulk.

Fermentation:

The juice is settled, usually overnight. In dry vintages I like to ferment slightly cloudy (dirty) juice as I believe it gives more character to the wine. In rainy harvest years I let it settle longer and ferment very clear juice. After years of experimenting with uninnoculated fermentations in white wines, I have returned to primarily cultured yeast fermentations with the exception of Hardscrabble Chardonnay.. The resulting wine simply tastes better to me. I use primarily French yeast strains. Most white wines are fermented at 50 to 65 F (10 to 18 C). Chardonnay and Late Harvest are barrel fermented. All other whites are typically tank fermented. Only Chardonnay may go through malolactic fermentation.

Èlevage (aging)

I rack once, just after fermentation to get the wine off its gross lees. The next racking will be in preparation for bottling. Chardonnay and Late Harvest are aged on the lees (sur lie) and may be stirred occasionally depending on their development. Most whites are bottled in late winter in order to retain freshness and aromatics. The exceptions are Chardonnay and Late Harvest, which are bottled in August. All Linden wines benefit from bottle aging. We try to give the bottled wines at least 6 months and often several years of bottle aging here in our cellars.

Reds

ll our vineyards are planted to the Bordeaux varieties of cabernet sauvignon, cabernet franc, merlot, petit verdot and Carmenere. Each of these grapes has inherent strengths and weaknesses both in the vineyard and in the wine. It takes decades to understand the intricacies of each. I have come to the conclusion that blending produces the most balanced and interesting wine. All our reds are blends of different Bordeaux grape varieties.

Goal:

Our single vineyard reds are the best expression of their terroir. These are wines that are made for aging and have depth, structure, and complexity. Our Claret and Petit Verdot are wines that reflect the vintage and are typically approachable at a younger age and have straightforward, appealing flavors and structure.

Harvest:

Skin ripeness is the most important harvest parameter for me. There is an important change that happens when the skin changes from thick and resilient to thin and fragile. If my fingers are stained while sampling this is a very good sign. Seed ripeness is also important. Green seeds give green tannins to the wine. I no longer do significant pre harvest lab analysis on the red grapes as I feel the results unfavorably influence my picking decisions. Harvesting by soil type is extremely important with the reds, as I am finding a direct relationship between soil and wine quality.

Crush:

We double sort the reds, first, before destemming to remove leaves, petioles and "pink“ or excessively shriveled clusters. The second sorting is more important. It comes after the grapes have gone through the destemmer. At the second sorting table we remove stem fragments ("jacks“) and pink berries. This is a very slow and meticulous job slowing our "crush rate“ to less than one ton per hour. The degree of crushing or breaking of the skins depends on my evaluation of the tannins. Typically for ripe Cabernet Sauvignon we will break the skins significantly to get better tannin extraction during fermentation. Cabernet Franc, on the other hand, is usually whole berry as I find the tannins to be more bitter.

Fermentation:

Destemed and sorted grapes fall by gravity into one ton fermenters. Over the years I have experimented with tank fermentation, pumping over, delestage, extended skin maceration, but almost always prefer a traditional Burgundian open top/punch down. This also ties into my need to keep lots small and separate. The crushed grapes are cold soaked for several days. Because red harvest occurs from mid October to November the grapes are already quite cold. We heat the fermentation cellar so as to stimulate yeast and malolactic fermentations. Yeasts are typically not added. Red alcoholic fermentations may be uninnoculated, but cultured ML bacteria are used. Press timing decisions are made by evaluating tannin extraction. I am now doing more extended post fermentation macerations. Press fractions are divided: free run (drained from fermentor), light press and hard press. They are kept separate until blending decisions are made. The young wine is settled for a day or two, then racked into barrels to complete malolactic fermentations in our warm cellar.

Èlevage (aging)

We now use primarily French oak, although we are still experimenting with Hungarian and Virginian oak. Typically our single vineyard lots see 30 to 50% new oak, while Claret sees very little new oak. In some vintages where the wines need more fat, I may age sur lie and stir. We rack in most winters to give the young wines oxygen, but then put them to bed by spring. They spend anywhere from 9 to 22 months in oak before bottling. Blending decisions are made in the winter following harvest. A panel consisting of Linden staff and collegues taste blind over a several month period to fine tune the blends. Red wines are usually bottled unfined and unfiltered.